Angels and Demons
by KR Blake
Summary: When Ally Dawson is attacked by a demon in her high school, she is dragged headfirst into the dangerous world of demon hunters. With the help of Austin Moon, a self-absorbed demon hunter himself, and his demon hunter "family", Ally must figure out what these demons want with her, and what makes her so special that they would kill to get her. Auslly. Rated T. Multichapter.
1. Gold

Chapter one: Gold

* * *

It's funny how clear life suddenly becomes when you come face to face with a demon.

Suddenly, the things that had seemed so colossal in your life beforehand become quite miniscule in comparison. You don't seem to mind that no one asked you to the Spring Formal dance. You find that you can live with your chronic nervousness and your stage fright. Your parents' divorce? You're over it, suddenly. At least they still love you.

All that suddenly doesn't seem to be quite as bad as the massive beast looming over you right at this moment, so close you can smell its rank breath and count its dagger-sharp teeth.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. My story, though it does involve a startling amount of demons, doesn't start here.

It starts a little before, in gym class, when I'm completely defenseless against that part of the world I used to be ignorant to.

I wish I could still say that now.

* * *

"_Dawson!_" Coach Lewis snapped at me from across the track, where he'd seated his fat ass on a lawn chair in the center circle. "Pick up the pace! You're lagging!"

I sighed and mumbled a curse under my breath. I wasn't extremely athletic (I had a tendency to always somehow hurt myself when I tried to be athletic). I was only taking this gym class because it was mandatory for high school. We couldn't graduate without one Phys Ed course, and stupid me had waited until senior year to do it. So I was stuck in this gym course, surrounded by twenty or so hard-core athletes who took this course for the fun of it.

Suffice to say, I didn't fit in too well with this class.

I forced myself to run faster around the course, though "_faster_" isn't saying much, seeing as I couldn't even outrun a child.

I rounded the corner in the dirt track, calves burning from exertion. Sweat made my hair stick to my neck and face and my too-big gym shirt cling to me. It felt disgusting.

Why did they even make us run laps outside during the summertime in Miami? Weren't they afraid someone would pass out from heatstroke or dehydration?

I scowled to myself as I ran around the next corner. _When I have kids_, I thought, _I'm going to force them to take gym in grade nine. They don't need to suffer like this so close to graduation_.

Someone laughed. I whipped my head to the side, towards the trees that surrounded the track behind the school, a fiery look on my face. I saw him standing there, leaning against a tall conifer, and for a second, I thought I was hallucinating. He wasn't from this school, obviously. I'd never seen him before in my life, and he was obviously someone who couldn't stick to the shadows. The self-assured smirk on his face made that blindingly clear. He was looking at me easily, an amused look on his face as I ran.

My eyes narrowed.

Glancing over my shoulder to the rest of the class, I saw no one was paying attention to me or him. It was like they couldn't even see him and, well, I was naturally invisible. No one noticed me too much.

I veered off the track and ran towards him, my lips pursed together in annoyance. I slowed to a walk when I neared him, welcoming the break to running. I knew I should have just kept going along the track and ignored him, but I couldn't. He _laughed_ at me. He had actually had the nerve to laugh at someone who was clearly out of their element in gym class.

Crossing my arms over my chest expectedly, I raised an eyebrow at this person. "Can I help you with something?" I asked sharply.

He shrugged easily. "Nope. I was just enjoying the show."

"What? Me running is entertaining to you?" I questioned my annoyance piquing.

"Of course it is." he replied in that silky-smooth voice of his, like it should have been obvious. "You make this face when you run like someone just cut one right in front of you. It's quite amusing."

I felt my cheeks flush with colour and I marched up to him, ready to slap him across the face if need be. "Who _are_ you?" I snapped.

He only smirked more, a fire dancing around in his brown eyes like he knew something I didn't. "That," he said matter-of-factly, "is for me to know and for you to hope you never find out."

"What the hell kind of crap answer is that?" I spat at him, stepping closer. We were only a few feet away from each other now. "What are you, some kind of undercover FBI agent?"

He just shrugged. Annoyance flared in my stomach, and I had to stiffen my arms to keep from trying to scratch his eyes out.

"You're not a very good conversationalist, you know that?"

"And you don't make a very pleasant first impression." He countered. "Are you usually this hostile with new people?"

My hands squeezed into fists. "Only when they appear to be self-absorbed assholes like you do." I threw the words in his stupid, flawless, angular face.

"So it's my fault you're incredibly pissed off at a stranger you don't even know right now?" he asked, his tone level and reasonable.

"_Yes!_" I all-but shouted, throwing my arms up in exasperation.

"And why's that?" he cocked his blonde head to the side, an unreadable expression on his face.

"You laughed at me while I was running!" God, some people.

"But you were the one who came over here." He pointed out.

"Because you laughed!" I did shout at him this time.

He crinkled his eyebrows a bit, studying me intently. His eyes swept all over me interestingly, and unreadable emotions danced all over his face.

"What are you doing?" I asked rudely.

"Looking at the girl who looks like she wants to score my eyes out with a rusty screwdriver. What does it look like?" he replied just as rudely.

"Well take a picture," I told him. "It'll last longer."

"So I've heard." He nodded his blonde head. "What's your name, anyways?"

I straightened up a bit, taken aback by his seemingly mundane question. "Ally." I said. "What's yours?"

"Would you believe me if I told you it was Agamemnon?" he joked. I shook my head flatly.

"Not even a little bit."

"Damn," he said. Running a hand through his sun bleached-blonde hair, he gave me a look of surrender. "It's Austin."

"There," I nodded. "Was that so hard?"

He rolled his eyes. "So are you done yet?"

"Done what?" I blinked, confused.

"Your interrogation." He said. "Are you done yet? 'Cause I've got somewhere to be and I've already wasted enough time talking to you."

My gaze narrowed evilly. "So then why did you waste it?" I snapped. There was just something about this boy that set my teeth on edge—the way he held himself, spoke, and looked around like he was better than everything—it annoyed me. He was infuriating.

"Because it was very entertaining to see you get so worked up over something that was clearly all your fault." He replied simply, and I threw my arms up, frustrated. _He_ laughed at _me!_

"I give up." I stated dejectedly. "Go pillage a nearby town or whatever you have to be so mysterious about."

I whipped around to face the track, and saw that everyone had already gone in. I must have been talking to Austin for longer than I thought—school was already over. I could see the buses pulling out of the driveway, packed with kids.

"Great," I mumbled. "And now I've missed my bus. Fantastic."

I glanced back over my shoulder to see that Austin had gone—probably to find some village to raze or something. I sighed, shaking my head. Some people. Combing my thin fingers through my ponytail, I began the slow walk back towards the school. My legs felt tired from the workout, but thankfully my talk with Austin had given me enough time to rest that the air had returned to my lungs. As I walked, I pulled the loose hair tie out of my hair, letting my brown curls fall loosely around my shoulders. Shaking my hair out, I took a deep breath of the summer air.

It was June, almost the end of the school year. There was just a week left until graduation. Technically, I didn't need to go to class anymore; I'd already passed all my classes. But I didn't skip school. Skipping was wrong.

I reached the back entrance to the school and pushed open the door to the gymnasium. The school was eerily quiet, I noticed, as I walked across the waxed gym towards the locker rooms. Had it not been the end of the year, people would have been milling around for nearly two hours after the final bell, but during this last week, people were rushing home to either study for exams or start celebrating summer vacation early. Either way, Marino High School was empty, save me and probably a few janitors scurrying around somewhere, preparing the school for the summer.

I kicked open the door to the girl's locker room and made my way to the corner, where my gym bag hung on the hook, my sandals placed neatly underneath.

I quickly stripped off my sweaty gym clothes, threw them into my bag, and changed into a pair of jean shorts and a dark gray band t-shirt that said, "_**MCRmy wants you**_". Throwing my bag over my shoulder, I slipped into my sandals and walked out.

_Just five more days,_ I reminded myself as I walked through the ghostly hallways, up the stairs to my locker on the third floor. _Five more days, and then you'll be gone. _

It was odd to walk through these hallways and not be jostled by people along the way. There were nearly 2000 people at Marino; it was hard to walk from one class to another without being knocked into a locker at least once. At least, it was hard for me, someone who was always doomed to be invisible to high school society. Maybe things would be different in college. Maybe not.

Spinning the lock on the same locker I'd had for the past four years, I ran all this through my mind. It was hard to process the fact that I was actually leaving this place. After four years, it seemed so strange. I was going out into the world to be an adult (well, almost an adult; I was still only 17). I grabbed my calculus textbook from the top shelf of my locker and shut the door, locking it once again.

Behind me, I heard someone let out a harsh breath, like a grunt, but breathier. Odd. I hadn't heard anyone walk down the hallway. I didn't bother glancing over my shoulder, though; it was probably just one of the janitors walking past, sighing at the prospect of having to deal with the third floor boy's bathroom once more. That bathroom was particularly infamous for being the dirtiest in the school.

Humming a tune under my breath, I turned and—

—and came face to face with a… a _thing_. An _it._ I couldn't even fathom the words to describe it—it was just a _thing_. A big, massive _thing_. A _creature_. A massive, black scaled creature that looked like it was a serpent of sorts at one point, but then just kept going on the evolutionary scale and morphed into its own species entirely. It had six stubby legs coming out from its fat body, but it still lay flat on its stomach. It snapped its maw hungrily, fixing its unseeing black eyes on me resolutely.

Flattening myself against the lockers, I did the one thing I knew any heroine would do in this situation. I, naturally, screamed.

I felt disgust bloom in my stomach as I watched it more and more. The way it flicked its thick tail and twitched its head to the side every few seconds. And—just when I thought things couldn't get any more disgusting—it opened its mouth. And _spoke_. In a series of hisses and snaps, I heard it speak. The noises seemed to come from all around me, surrounding my mind and confusing me, but I could understand it perfectly well.

"_The girl is here,_" it said. "_The girl is here and Master will be pleased. Master will be pleased._"

That made me scream even more shrilly; for some reason, I had the sickening feeling that the creature was talking about me. Why, I didn't know, and I _really_ didn't want to.

And no matter how many times I blinked or rubbed my eyes, it wouldn't go away. It was impossible. I was imagining this. I had to be. It would be impossible otherwise.

Because demons don't exist. That's just crazy-talk.

As I watched, the creature's legs seemed to contract and tighten, like it was preparing for something. I had the nagging sense that I should have been moving out of the way right then, but I was too scared to listen to that sense. I was petrified. Frozen.

It hissed and lunged right at my face. Panic flared in my veins, and I fell back against the lockers, dropping my textbook and bag. The locks poked me in the back painfully, but I couldn't stop to recognize the pain. The creature collided with the lockers just inches above my head, its mouth going clean through the metal doors. I scrambled out of the way as it ripped itself from the lockers, taking the door with it. The door made a horrible scraping sound against the floor as the demon shook its head, tearing the door to shreds with its powerful teeth.

It slithered towards me, and I tried to crawl away as quickly as possible, but I felt it grab at my ankle with its claws. The claws slashed open my foot and I screamed out, tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. I pulled away and turned over to see it slithering alarmingly fast directly at my face. I screamed again. I tried to stand and run, but the pain in my foot was too much. I just crumpled back down onto the linoleum floor, gasping for air as block spots danced across my vision. I vaguely registered the blood dripping down my foot and creating a pool around me.

"_The girl fights. Master did not say the girl fights. Master did not say._" the demon hissed again. I felt bile begin to rise in my throat.

Rolling to the side, I pushed myself up against the lockers, trying desperately to get away from the demon, but it just kept creeping closer. I felt the tears begin to slip down my cheeks, blurring my vision, but I could still see the demon lung forward once again.

I grabbed desperately at my surroundings, praying I could find something—_anything_—that could have helped me. My shaking hands closed around my thick calculus textbook.

As the demon flew closer and closer, I brought the textbook up and swung it at its face (or, what I assumed to be its face). The force was so great I knocked the demon to the side. It crashed into the floor, and I saw through my tears the floor beginning to crack where it had landed on its scaled back.

The demon flipped over onto its stomach and shook its head out. Snapping its maw menacingly, it slithered towards me again, faster this time. I brought the textbook back and swung out, hoping to bat it away again, but it caught the heavy book in its mouth mid-swing and ripped it out of my hands. As I watched, it tore the book apart, throwing papers everywhere.

I screamed again, my throat raw by now.

I pushed myself up with the lockers, balancing on my one good foot, and tried to hop away (because I'm just a genius like that) but I felt its tail, which was surprisingly slimy, curl around my good ankle and rip my leg out from underneath me. I landed hard on the floor, the wind knocked out from my lungs, and my head slammed against the linoleum tile flooring.

Pain pulsed all around my head achingly and I gasped. For a second, I couldn't see anything—I think I'd been knocked out or something—but only for a second, before the world was back. It was blurred, but it was back.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

The demon was about three inches away from my face, snapping its maw right in front of my eyes. Its rancid breath made me gag. It was so close; I could practically count its rows of devilishly sharp teeth. I tried to scream, to call for someone to help in desperation, but my voice died in my throat. I was frozen. I couldn't do anything—exhaustion was creeping in, and I could feel blood trickling down the back of my shirt from a cut somewhere on my head.

There was no use in fighting anymore; I'd lost. I'd lost, and now I was going to die.

They say that when you're about to die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. Well, if that's true, I must have been leading a pretty useless life up until that point, because I saw nothing. I only saw that demon looming closer and close, its tail rising up behind it and stabbing into my arm.

I felt something being injected into my arm, like a liquid, and my arm suddenly grew heavy, I couldn't move it. It was effectively paralyzed, and I could feel the same sensation spreading throughout my body. I stopped being able to feel anything. Even the heavy weight of the demon sitting on my stomach disappeared.

My vision began to cloud once more, but this time I knew that it would be for good. I wouldn't be coming to anytime soon.

And, as the world slipped away right in front of me, I saw something, like a flash of gold, behind the rapidly defocusing demon in front of me. I could have sworn the demon was being lifted off me—or maybe it was being thrown off me, I don't know. I doubted it was real, though. Whatever that demon had injected into me had probably made me hallucinate that I was being saved.

Far away, I thought I heard something slam against the lockers and the floors, but I kept my eyes on the ceiling.

A minute later, that same flash of gold I had seen came back into view, leaning over me. I could see now it was a person—a boy. With alluring brown eyes that, up close, I could see contained a few flecks of amber and gold around the pupils.

And lips. I could see lips. Lips that curved into a wry smirk. They moved, but I heard nothing. Only a white buzz that floated through my mind as the world finally fell away completely.

And then I saw nothing. Felt nothing.

Everything was gone away.

* * *

**I like this. I think it's good. But, then again, it's supernatural, which is, like, my favouritest genre ever, along with dystopia and urban fantasy. It's because I get to create logical explanations for absurd situations, which is AWESOME. I'm rambling, aren't I? Sorry. Anyways, please, tell me what you think! Please? I'll love you forever. :) **

**P.S., Karina, I told you that little excerpt was taken WAY out of context, didn't I? **

**-KR Blake **


	2. Falling Through the Door

****Chapter two: Falling Through the Door

* * *

**This chapter is for Alice/WannabeWriter630 for two reasons: **

**1) She is insanely sweet, and left a beautiful review on chapter one. **

**2) So she'll remember the deal we made; a chapter for a chapter. It's your turn now, Alice. **

* * *

Where was I? Was I dead? No, I could feel my heart beating loudly in my eardrums.

So if I wasn't dead, where was I?

I wasn't in the conscious world, I knew that. But I wasn't in another world, either. I was just in my own world, my own mind, floating, in limbo. I could hear sounds around me—footsteps and voices and the rustling of starched sheets—but I couldn't do anything about it. I was frozen in the darkness. Stuck.

"…demon was already on her when I got there." I heard someone say close by, but still, they sounded so far away. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me. "Her foot was practically shredded to pieces."

"But she wasn't dead?" another voice said, this one confused, rather than caring, as the first voice had been.

"No, that's the strange part." The first voice spoke again. "It was a full-grown demon; it should have been devouring her by the time I got there, but she wasn't even close to death."

Were they talking about me? I couldn't tell.

"That doesn't make sense." A third voice said, joining in the conversation.

"No…" the second voice trailed off, and I could just imagine someone scratching their head, confused at this thought.

I heard two sets of footsteps walk away, and then a third pair shuffle around next to me. Things were beginning to sharpen in my mind by now. I could tell I was lying in a bed, covered in very starched sheets that should have been washed in fabric softener for a week straight, and there was light somewhere around me.

I felt the weight shift on the edge of my bed, right beside me, as someone sat down next to my arm, and a finger trace slowly through my hairline. The finger curled around a lock of my hair and tugged on it interestingly.

"What are you hiding up there?" the first voice, which I could define as male now, murmured lowly.

The finger slid into my hair and began to comb it gently, like the person was playing with my hair. It was odd, of course, but I had the feeling that if I hadn't been completely catatonic at that moment, I would have smiled. Or punched him in the face for invading my personal space.

"Eh?" he said. "What are your secrets?"

_If I told you, they wouldn't be secrets anymore,_ I thought to myself wryly.

"You probably don't even have secrets, though." He went on. "Trish seems to think you're some kind of never-before-seen fair folk creature, but that doesn't make sense. You don't seem to have that… that thing about you that would make you fair folk. You know?"

The hand dropped from my hair, and I felt him get up off the edge of my bed. "Of course you don't. You're just a regular human, aren't you? You're normal. There's nothing even remotely interesting about you. That demon was just defective. That's why it didn't kill you."

He paced around beside my bed fervently, and I suddenly wished I could move so I could have told him to stop. But I was stuck, frozen. Fantastic. Letting a deep breath out, he mumbled, "I gotta get out of this room."

I expected to hear his footsteps move out of the room, but instead, he sat back down on the edge of my bed and resumed playing my hair. He stayed silent this time, though. He just stayed there, playing with my hair, twirling it around his fingers and braiding it quietly, like it was calming for him.

After a few minutes, I finally had had enough of paralysis. I pried my eyes open, squinting in the bright light that filtered in through the large windows. I was in a bedroom. It was fairly small, and quite dirty, with clothes strewn all over the floor and musical instruments scattered along the walls. It was nice, though. It felt… homey. It felt warm and inviting.

The face above me, though, looked a little less than inviting. It was his—Austin's.

I should have guessed; who else would say I'm not special in the least?

He smiled down at me, and reached to the small bedside table beside my head, grabbing a glass of water with a straw, and guiding the straw into my mouth. I drank, slowly at first, but then I realized just how thirsty I was—my throat burned, like it had been coated in sandpaper. I drank the rest of the water down greedily, until Austin ripped the straw out of my mouth, making a few stray drips fly out of the end and splash on the sheets.

"That's enough for now," he said, putting the glass back on the bedside table. "You can have more when I'm sure you won't hack all over my floor."

"What?" I asked in a gravelly voice, trying to push myself up into a sitting position, but as soon as I did, pain flared in my left arm and my stomach twisted into knots. My left arm crumpled weakly and I fell back against the pillow.

"I wouldn't try that, if I were you." Austin said, amused. "You probably still have a little poison in you."

"Poison?" I asked, confused. "What… what happened?"

Suddenly, my head began to throb in the back, like I'd hit it. I touched it and winced as my fingers grazed a large bump. Crap that hurt.

"You don't remember?" Austin asked, his golden eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

_Gold…_

"No, I…" I searched my mind. "I was in gym, and… and I met you—you pissed me off—"

"I'm told I have that effect on people." He interjected wryly, and I rolled my eyes.

"No shit, Sherlock." I snapped before returning to my blanking memories. "Anyways, I was pissed off, and I missed my bus, and I went inside and changed and then I…" I bit my lip, suddenly drawing a blank. "I was standing at my locker, but I—I can't remember anything after that."

Austin nodded. "I figured as much." He stood from where he was perched on the edge of the bed and straightened his jeans. He looked down at me, holding a hand out to me. "C'mon. I think I know something that might help."

"Help what?" I asked stupidly.

"That might help you remember." He said simply. Not phased in the least by my dumbness. Slowly, I took his hand and let him lift me up into a sitting position, ignoring the nauseated feeling in my stomach. Then I swung my legs over the side of the bed and let him lift me up again, this time so I was standing. As soon as I stood, pain flared up my right leg, and I crumpled against him. His arm immediately went around my waist. I blushed, though I knew it didn't mean anything. He was just helping me walk, because for some reason, my right foot was heavily bandaged. I looked down at it, confused, but I decided not to question it. After waking up in a strange room in someone else's bed with a very daunting stranger-not-stranger sitting beside me, a banged up foot really wasn't all that surprising.

He took hold of my left wrist and carefully wrapped it around his waist, making my arm ache with the movement. I noticed the upper arm, near the shoulder, was just as heavily bandaged as my foot.

And we began the slow procession to wherever Austin thought would help. Wherever that may be.

/-/-/-/

I found that we were in a nice, modern-looking house, which had the same kind of feeling as the bedroom I'd woken up in. Like it was an actual _home_ to someone—to Austin, I guessed.

Austin guided me down the hallway, which was decorated blandly, and down a flight of stairs, into large kitchen. In contrast to the bland hallway and stairs we'd walked down, the kitchen was very full—not only with people, but pictures, books, boxes and glasses of liquids. The liquids were lined up on shelves that wrapped all around the large room. They ranged in colours and densities, and each of the glasses had a yellowed label on them with faded black writing I couldn't read.

The books and boxes made stacks all around the room, serving as tables or foot rests or just about anything books or boxes could be used for.

The pictures filled all the spaces on the pale yellow walls that were not occupied by shelves of glasses. The pictures were of people—all different people. They all stood straight-backed and serious, with dark clothing. Some of them looked a little secretive as they looked at the camera, but none of them smiled. They all looked aged beyond their years, grim lines painted on their foreheads and cold expressions. Some of the people stood alone, and some in large groups of ten or eleven. Most of the pictures were in granny black and white, but some—the more precariously placed photos—were in high-res colour.

There were three people lounging around the kitchen; two boys and one girl. They all looked around mine and Austin's age, but the tall redhead sitting on the granite counters was probably a few years older, by the way he held himself.

The girl was short—even shorter than me—with curly black hair and perfectly tanned olive skin. She stood leaning against the counter, near the redhead, reading one of the books from around the room.

The last person, the second boy, sat in one of the dining chairs, feet propped up on one of the book stacks. He had sandy blonde hair and a wicked grin, like he always knew something you didn't. His eyes were quick to dart around the room, taking things in at a rapid pace. He was the first to look at us as we came hobbling in.

Austin helped me walk across the kitchen and sit in the chair beside the quick-eyed guy, and dragged a large wooden box over to me so I could rest my bandaged foot on it.

"So Sleeping Beauty was finally kissed awake," the sandy-haired guy mused, smirking. "Right, Prince Eric?" he flicked his quick eyes to Austin mischievously.

"Aurora was kissed awake by Prince Phillip," the tall redhead corrected him simply. "Prince Eric is from _The Little Mermaid_."

The sandy-haired guy rolled his eyes. "You would know." It sounded like an offhanded, rude comment to me, but to the redhead, it was normal, I guess. He just smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

"Um, no one kissed me awake," I piped up in a small voice, glancing back at Austin, confused. "Did they?"

"Ignore Elliot," the short Latina girl said, looking up from her battered old book. "He's just being an ass."

"I resent that you think that." Elliot said.

"Tough nuggets, 'cause I'm not going to stop thinking it until it's not true." She deadpanned, looking back down to her book. Elliot opened his mouth to spout out some clever retort, but the girl gave him one sharp look over the top of her book, and his mouth snapped closed.

"Right," Austin said flatly, looking down at me. "That," he pointed to the short girl, "is Trish De La Rosa. She's like a mom to us all." Next, he pointed to the redhead, who was now twirling a wooden spoon around his slender fingers. "That's Dez Fisher. He's… eccentric, I guess you could say."

"Eccentric, mentally unfit to hunt, what's the difference?" Elliot mused, a coy smile playing across his face.

Dez just looked at him and whipped the spoon across the room, spinning head over handle, aimed right at Elliot's head. Elliot caught it out of the air easily and dropped it on the cluttered kitchen table.

"And the colossal ass over there is Elliot Maier," Austin jerked his thumb towards Elliot, who nodded and smiled, like he was totally fine with this brand. "Any questions?"

"Just one: What happened?"

Looks were passed all around the room, between everyone but me. They were uncertain glances, like they were debating whether or not to tell me.

"You've been out for four days," Dez said finally, breaking the unsure silence of the kitchen. "It took longer for the poison to drain from your system than we thought it would."

"Poison?" I asked for clarification. Dez nodded grimly, his past carefreeness seeming to melt away temporarily. That was the second time someone had brought up poison, and yet I still had no idea how poison would have gotten into me in the first place.

"But…" I started, but trailed off, confused. It didn't make sense. What would poison me?

"We should start from the beginning, shouldn't we?" Trish cut in. "We're just confusing her."

Austin nodded in understanding. "Right." He ran a hand through his golden hair, letting out a slow breath, before training his eyes on me intently. "Trish, Dez, Elliot and I, we're… We're not human—not exactly. Not fully. We're demon hunters. We go around, killing demons before they can get at the humans."

"Demons?" I scoffed. "Are you serious? Demons don't exist." The words seemed to taste bitter on my lips. I grimaced.

"Don't they?" Elliot cut in, leaning forward across the table on his elbows, dropping the wooden spoon onto the flowery table cloth. "Think about it—hard. Think back in your life. Have you ever… thought you've seen something? Something that shouldn't have been there? Like a shadow, or a mirage, only there was no body to own the shadow, or no sun to make the mirage? Have you ever seen something like that? I bet you have. Most humans see something at one point or another; they're just too ignorant to connect the dots."

"I—" I tried to say something, but there was something about the passion in his voice that made me stop and think. Images rose up in my mind. When I was three, I would spend entire nights up, crying for my parents to kill the "_scary men_" that lived in the shadows and showed their faces only when the lights were out. When I was twelve, I'd gone camping with my friend's family, and I'd been too scared to sleep in the tent because I could see the shadows, and I had thought they were walking, coming to get me.

Whispers I'd thought I'd heard, but dismissed it as the wind. Dark claws coming out from under my bed when I was sick, but telling myself the fever was getting to me.

As I turned Elliot's words over and over in my mind, I felt myself wanting to believe him—at least a little bit. I didn't know why, but I wanted to believe that demons existed, and these four people around me killed them before the demons could hurt me.

"Exactly," Elliot nodded, satisfied. "And that's what happened to you; you got too close to the Darker World, and you fell in."

"I… I did?" I asked, slowly.

"It was a demon that tore up your foot, and stabbed your arm." Austin piped up in explanation. I looked down at my foot. "Four days ago, in your high school. It attacked you, but luckily I got there before it…"

"Before it killed me?" I completed. Austin nodded solemnly.

I took a moment to think about this. There was this… this hole in my memory, where a normal afternoon should have been, and yet here these four strangers were, telling me it was in reality filled with fictitious creatures from Hell. They watched me, waiting for me to get it, but I didn't—I don't think I really wanted to. I think, on some level, it felt… it felt like it might make sense, but if I accepted it; I would have been pushed into the "_Darker World_", as Elliot had called it. I would have been pushed into the unknown, and I was scared of that. Well, of course I was. Everyone was. It was human nature to be scared of the unknown.

"I—" I tried to say something, but my voice died in my throat. It died as I searched around the room, taking in the cluttered kitchen once again. It died as I read some of the labels on the bottles, and the faded letters began to switch around in front of my very eyes into an old, forgotten language I somehow found I knew. It died as the books beneath my injured foot somehow suddenly looked like I'd read them before, and got lost in them before.

It died as images flashed against the backs of my eyes. I saw a black creature tearing at my foot, attacking me. I saw my calculus textbook slamming into the side of its head the first time, but getting caught in its razor-sharp teeth the second time. I saw its spiked tail wrapping around my ankle. I saw the floor rushing towards me and slamming into the back of my head. I saw the clouds converge on my vision as something gold—Austin, I guessed—knelt over me, telling me something.

My voice died in my throat as I felt myself being pushed through the figurative portal door into the Darker World.

I paled, suddenly feeling faint. My head swam, and I felt like I was going to drown, swaying a bit on my chair, but I kept myself upright.

I felt Elliot's words, and Austin's, begin to fit them into my life, filling in tiny holes in my memories. When I was three, those faces I'd seen in the shadows had been real demons watching me. When I was twelve, in those woods, I hadn't been stupid to think that monsters were coming to take me away—they were real, and they probably were coming to take me away.

It was horrifying, this realization. It was horrifying, yet…

Something struck a chord in the pit of my stomach. It felt… right, I guess.

Okay.

Like with Austin and Elliot's words, it somehow fit into my life, filling another hole in my memory.

"Ally," Elliot said, smirking, drawing me out of my mind for a second and to his smirking face. I wondered how he knew my name, but then I figured Austin must have told them.

"Welcome to the Darker World. You're in Hell now."

* * *

**It's a bit bland, I know, but it's an introductory into the main plot of the story. But what did you think? Good? Bad? Feel like telling me in a review? Please? :) **

**-KR Blake **


	3. What is Mundane

Chapter three: What is Mundane

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**Disclaimer: I always forget these, so let this go for the entirety of Angels and Demons, I don't own Austin & Ally, or anything you recognize, but I do own the Darker World and all that goes along with it. Does that make me the Darker World Overlord? **

* * *

The bathroom in this small two-storey house was a sleek, modern bathroom with tiled flooring and glass walls on the shower. It looked like something right out of an Ikea catalogue; not something that should have fit into the house. As I'd walked down the hallways, I'd noticed that almost every part in the house looked different. It all felt the same, but it looked different. The kitchen was cluttered beyond belief, the bathroom was entirely contemporary, and even the bedroom doors I'd passed had all been painted different colours. One was a hot pink, another was royal purple, another was painted like a can of Arizona green tea; teal, and then faded into red. The last at the end of the hallway was painted the simplest; a soft powdery blue.

I regarded myself dully in the shining vanity mirror on the wall. I looked so sullen with my sunken cheeks and glazed eyes. I guessed it was because I'd been asleep and without food for four days. I sighed and ran the comb that Trish had lent to me through my tangled hair. I winced as the teeth caught on a few spots of dried blood here and there and yanked on my hair. It didn't help that I was only using one hand, as my left arm was sore beyond belief from where the demon had stung me.

_Demon. _

It still felt a little weird to accept that as the truth; it still seemed so unconceivable to the mundane side of my brain.

But then there was that other, more dominant part of my brain that accepted it wholly. It made me believe that demons and the Darker World were the truth.

I sighed and picked up the baggy shirt that Austin had pulled out of the back of his closet for me to wear. Yes, as weird as it was, I was wearing some guy's clothing. But, really, I'd had no choice. Trish was much shorter than I was, Dez much taller, and Elliot only seemed to have muscle shirts in his closet. So Austin had been a last resort, unless I wanted to stay in the same dirty, tattered "_**MCRmy wants you**_" shirt and bloodied jean shorts for God knew how long.

Slipping off my old shirt and folding it neatly, I pulled Austin's faded yellow Harley Davidson shirt over my head. I winced as I caught a sight of myself in the mirror, though. I could see a few large, purpling bruises along my ribs and spine; probably where I'd fallen on the floor and against the lockers. I scowled at that.

Next I peeled off my shorts, stiff with dried blood, and pulled on his old jeans. They were a bit too long, despite the fact that Austin had probably worn them when he was fifteen, and a bit too loose around the waist, but they were better than nothing. I rolled up the pant legs and grabbed a hair clip from the sleek black counter and used it to clip the loose parts of the waist together.

Then I leaned over the sink and ran the water until it was warm enough to splash on my face. That made me look a bit more washed and alert, but I still felt stiff all over.

I sighed again, gathering up my clothes from the floor, and walked out of the bathroom, towards the powdery blue door at the other end of the upstairs hall. Trish had told me to go there once I was cleaned up.

As I walked past, the Arizona-painted door opened, and Elliot stepped out into the hallway, smirking as his hazel eyes swept me up and down. I felt a little self-conscious as this, but I couldn't shift from foot to foot, as I normally would when I was nervous. Instead, I had to stand there, still, leaning against the wall because I couldn't very well just up and leave. That would be rude.

"You look absolutely ridiculous." Elliot finally said an amused look on his face. I rolled my eyes.

"Thanks, that's exactly what I was going for." I responded sarcastically.

"Any time, gorgeous." He said easily, like he was used to these sorts of sarcastic, bantered conversations. "You realize your pants are slipping, right?"

I looked down at my waist to see he was right; the light blue jeans were indeed beginning to slip a bit lower on my small waist.

"Here," he said before I could fix them myself. He pulled the pin from where it had been slowly coming out of the jean fabric and folded the loose flap neatly, pressing it closed as he fixed the clip. I couldn't help the blush that grew lightly over the bridge of my nose as his fingers brushed against the exposed skin between the hem of my borrowed shirt and the waist of my borrowed jeans.

"Um, thanks," I said awkwardly, nodding.

"Like I said, any time, gorgeous." He replied, but this time it didn't sound quite as sarcastic. It still sounded bigoted and like Elliot, from all that I'd gathered in the twenty minutes I'd known him, but with a bit of sincerity added into the mix.

The two of us stayed like that for a heartbeat; me leaning a hand against the wall for stability and him just leaning close to invade my personal space.

Until someone cleared their throat behind us. We turned towards the sound at the end of the hallway, to see Austin leaning in the door frame of the powdery blue door, arms crossed, an annoyed expression on his face. Elliot straightened up.

"Need a Halls?" he asked nonchalantly, but Austin didn't laugh.

"Shut it, dill weed." He said in an angry voice. I was taken aback by the hostility—not only in his voice, but in his face, as well. His features, which had been light and golden, seemed darker and sharper now as he tilted his head down and leered at Elliot evilly.

"Hey, take it easy, Austin," Elliot said, turning back into his own door, which I assumed was the door to his bedroom. "I was just helping her fix the waist on her jeans."

Austin scoffed. "You know _exactly_ what you were doing, Elliot."

"Whaaatever." Elliot said in a singsong voice, turning into his room and shutting the door. As he did, he said one last thing over his shoulder, though it was more directed towards Austin than me. "Toodle-loo, Ally."

Austin sent Elliot's closed door one last deathly glare, and turned to me. "You doing all right?"

"Yeah," I nodded, forcing a smile, despite how muddled my mind was with what had just happened. "Just a few minor war wounds, but nothing a strong girl like me can't handle." To demonstrate, I flexed my thin bicep, showing off as cocky of a smile as I could manage. I wasn't cockiest person, though, so it just turned out an awkward smile that made Austin burst out in laughter.

"Oh yes," he nodded. "You're Wonder Woman all right."

I stuck my tongue out at him. This house seemed to be entirely made up of teasing each other; down in the kitchen, Trish had been smacking Dez in the knuckles with a spoon for trying to take some of their dinner early, and so he had called her the Dinner Dictator. Elliot had laughed at this, and added on that she could make Genghis Kahn run for his mother.

No one seemed to take offense to any of these teasing remarks, though. It was like these four people were adoptive siblings.

It was nice.

"Now come on," he said, bobbing his head back a bit, gesturing into the room he stood in front of. "Trish wanted me to show you something."

Curious, I hobbled along the hallway and followed Austin into the room—which I saw was the same one I had woken up in a little while earlier. The sheets on the bed were a bit more messed up now, though, and one of the acoustic guitars from the corner lay on the floor beside it. I could just see sheet music stuffed hastily into a folder and placed on the bedside table. On top of the folder was a large bowl of steaming oatmeal, a spoon lying beside it.

Other than that, the room was just as I had woken up in; messy, yet neat. Organized chaos.

"What is it?" I asked, looking around the room with interest as he shut the door behind us.

"Um…" he looked around the room nervously, scratching the back of his neck. "That," he said finally, "is an excellent question. Which I will be able to answer as soon as I find it." He wheeled around and started digging through a small pile of clothes on the ground. "You can start on the bowl of oatmeal while you wait; Trish made it for you."

"That was nice of her," I commented, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking the hot bowl and the spoon off the folder. I could see a few small apple dices floating in the thick oatmeal and smiled. It smelled delicious.

"Well, like I said; Trish is like a mom to us." Austin said distractedly, turning in his squatting position to search through another pile of clothes. I began to eat the food. My stomach rumbled loudly suddenly, and pangs of hunger stabbed at me. I hadn't realized how hungry I was until I started eating. I began to wolf down the hot oatmeal at a startling pace; it's a wonder I didn't throw up all over the carpeted flooring.

"I guess she's a mom to you, too, now, since you're going to be staying with us from now on." Austin continued, standing from his crouch to search a shelf on the wall.

My throat closed automatically and I began sputtering on my meal, a little bit dribbling down my chin. "W—w—what?" I coughed out, putting the bowl back on the bedside table and wiping the oatmeal off my chin.

He turned around, a confused expression on his face. "You're going to be staying here." He repeated simply.

"Yeah, I got that," I snapped. "Follow up question: Why the hell would I stay here? I have a home, and a mom and a dad, who are probably freaking out right—" I stopped suddenly, my heart freezing mid-beat. "Oh, God." I said, mortified.

"What?"

"My mom—she's probably _freaking_ out right now," I said, almost to myself, hurriedly, standing and beginning to pace as fast as I could with my messed up foot. "I haven't been home for four days—she's probably told every policeman in Miami to find me."

"She sounds like a subtle woman." Austin noted sarcastically. I stopped mid-stride and shot him an evil look.

"She's not overreacting; she's my _mom_." I argued. "She's supposed to do that for her only daughter." I looked around the bedroom for a second, taking in a deep breath, trying to collect my whirring thoughts. She didn't know where I was. Would she blame my dad for this? Would they start yelling at each other again? Oh, God, what if the neighbours call the cops again for a disturbance? They had a habit of screaming as loudly as they could when they were angry at each other.

"Can I call her?" I asked finally, turning to Austin. I could tell I still had a flustered expression, but at least I could calm myself down enough to ask this, now. "Can I go see her?"

"I—" he started, looking a bit shocked at my abruptness.

"And don't you _dare_ say I'm being overdramatic." I cut in viciously, pointing a warning finger at him. "She is my mom, and she is probably worried sick about me. Let me go see her, or at least talk to her, or text her or—or just let her know I'm okay—"

"Ally!" Austin yelled, cutting into my hysterics. "Stop. Freaking. Out." He spaced out his words for effect. "Please. Your hysterics are hurting my ears."

I shut my mouth grudgingly.

"Thank you," he breathed. "I—I don't know if you can go see her—yet, at least. I'd have to check with the others. It's still dangerous for you to go out; we don't know why that demon attacked you yet. There could be more waiting for you, for all we know. It's still too dangerous." He reasoned. I nodded in understanding. That made sense. "But," he added, "you can call her on my cell if you—"

He didn't get to finish what he said because I tackled him in a sporadic, tight hug, throwing my arms around his shoulders. He stepped back, taken aback by this sudden outburst of joy.

"Thank you thank you thank you thank you—" I chanted gleefully, bouncing up and down a bit on my one good foot, using him as a kind of support.

"_Ally!_" Austin called through my excited mantra.

"Sorry," I mumbled, letting go of his shoulders and taking a step away, blushing.

"Thank you." He breathed again. Then he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and brought out a shining Android phone, and handed it to me. "Please try not to take too long; I only have a hundred minutes for all of July."

I nodded, and he gave me a small smile before walking out of the room and leaving me alone in the bedroom. As soon as the door clicked closed, I tapped the numbers into the phone and pressed _call_. I bobbed up and down a bit as the phone rang, until, finally, on the fourth ring, she picked up.

"_Hello?_" mom asked through the receiver.

"Mom?" I said. I heard a crash somewhere in the background and mom swore faintly.

"_Ally? Is that you? Are you all right? Where are you? Are you safe? Oh, Ally, I've been so worried—_" she said, almost in hysterics, her fast voice rising higher and higher as she spoke.

"Mom!" I stopped her before she cracked a glass with her voice or something. "I'm fine, I'm just…" I bit my lip, racking my brain for some plausible reason as to why I'd been gone so long. I'd never stayed away from home for longer than a night, and even then, mom always knew where I was. "I'm staying with friends for a few days. But I promise I'm all right."

I didn't like that I had to, technically, lie to her, but I had to. I couldn't just tell her what happened—she'd send me to a mental institution.

I heard her let out a slow breath. "_Thank, God. I—I don't want to think if something bad happened to my little girl—_" she cut off suddenly, and I knew she was crying on the other side of the line. I sat down on the edge of the bed and looked guiltily at the bandages wrapped around my foot.

"I know," my voice was small and tight. "I love you, mom."

"_I love you, too, sweetie._" She said in just as tight a voice as I had. "_Do you—do you know when you're coming home?_"

"I—" I started, but then broke off. When would I be home? Would I even go home _ever_? Austin had said it was dangerous for me to go out still, but I couldn't just stay inside this house forever, could I? I took a shaking breath. "I—I just need a few days." I said finally. "I'll come home when I can. I promise."

"_Okay,_" she said in a small voice. I could practically hear the tears rolling down her cheeks as she spoke to me. My heart tugged guiltily. I was the reason she was crying. I hated it—I hated _myself_ for it. "_I love you, Ally. So, so much._"

"I love you, too, mom. So much." _So much it hurts sometimes._ I added in my head as I clicked off the phone and let it slip out of my numb hand, onto the covers of the bed.

I couldn't stop the tears now. They spilled out, one after the other, staining my face and blurring my vision, but I couldn't stop them. I hated myself _so_ much for lying to her, even though I knew I had no choice. I covered my mouth with my hand as a sob wretched at my throat and more tears came.

"Ally?" I heard Austin shuffle into the bedroom, but I didn't look up. I just kept crying. "Are you okay?" I shook my head.

Silently, he sat down on the bed beside me. He didn't make any move to comfort me, but I turned and rested my head on his shoulder, crying into his shirt. I could feel him tense up a bit, but slowly, he wrapped an arm around me, hugging me to him as I cried.

"It's okay, Ally." He said soothingly. "You had to lie. You had no choice. It was the only thing you could do."

I don't know how he knew what I'd said to mom, but I nodded in understanding, anyways.

"Can I—can I ever go see her?" I asked, my voice mangled by tears, lifting my head up a bit to look at his face. I had expected it to be unreadable, like it usually was, but it wasn't. It was pained, apologetic.

"I—I'm really not sure." He said, biting his lip. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but didn't quite know how to say it.

"What?" I asked, wiping a tear off my cheek.

"It's just…" he started slowly. "There's just something… weird… that I don't get. That demon that attacked you—it shouldn't have."

"Why not?" I asked, sitting up. He ran a hand through his hair nervously before standing and striding over to one of the bookshelves and taking out a large, battered book from the top shelf. He leafed through the yellowed pages until he found the one he was looking for, and then handed it to me.

"This is the demon that attacked you." He said, pointing to the page. I flinched at the picture, remembering the horrible thing on top of me.

"'_The Gy-usian Demon,_'" I read aloud. "'_Sometimes called the Mercenary Demon, Gy-usian Demons are known for the incredibly potent venom contained within their spiked tails, which can render even the strongest demon hunters catatonic within minutes. This demon is often hired by the fair folk to capture and deliver enemy demon hunters._'" I finished reading the passage. "I don't get it." I looked up at Austin, confused.

"Ally, the Gy-usian demon attacks demon hunters—_only_ demon hunters." He said. "Its poison has no effect on regular humans."

The book slipped out of my hands, and the part of my arm where the demon had stabbed me suddenly felt a thousand pounds heavier.

* * *

**You can thank my school board for this being updated so early. I was supposed to take the most important test of high school today, but it was postponed last minute (I was literally just about to leave for school when I saw it was cancelled), so I decided to finish this chapter. Now everyone thank my school board for screwing me over for this literacy test. **

**I want to TRY to update this regularly, so I'm going to say, expect a new chapter every Friday, or Saturday at the latest, if I have a lot of schoolwork during the week. **

**Also, I've gotten a lot of people asking about it, so I'm just going to say right now, no, I won't be finishing Breaking the Rules. Sorry, but I can't. It's not going to work. **

**-KR Blake **


	4. The After-Effects of Saving A Life

Chapter four: The After-Effects of Saving A Life

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"Ally, you're not even trying!" Austin berated me loudly, an annoyed expression on his face.

"Yes, I am!" I panted, taking a split-second rest, leaning over with my hands on my knees. Sweat practically dripped off me and it felt like my lungs were about to cave in at any moment, but that, according to Austin, was no reason to take a break. No, of course not. Because health wasn't all that important when you were a demon hunter.

"Then try harder! Again!" he ordered, placing a hand on the shoulder of the sparring dummy in front of me.

We were in the small yard behind the house, training. It had been four days since I'd woken up here—and four days since I found out I was a demon hunter, like them. It still felt odd to know this—because, as Austin explained to me, either my parents are demon hunters, or my mom cheated on my dad once with an angel. I preferred to think that the former was true rather than the latter, even though the former would have meant my parents lied to me my whole life. Plus, it felt more comfortable to know that I was only part angel rather than half angel.

I'd learned that demon hunters and their bloodlines were created when angel blood mixed with human blood in a person. That's what made them stand apart from the rest of humanity; they—I mean we—were part divine.

I sighed, pushing my high ponytail back over my shoulder and punched out at the dummy again. My fist hit the center of its plastic chest. The force sent a trickle of pain up my arm, but I was used to that by now.

The midday sun was beating down harshly on the back of my neck, and I could feel the skin heating, slowly burning, but I couldn't stop to cover it. I'd only been coming out here with Austin, or sometimes Dez or Elliot, for the past four days, and yet I could already see a little difference in myself every time I looked in the bathroom mirror. My hair was getting more tangled, and the roots were _just_ a shade lighter than they had been a week ago. My hands were bandaged, though my arm had been unwrapped. The Gy-usian demon's tail hadn't gone in very far, but still, a raised, angry red splotch on my arm, about the size of a fist, stained my olive skin.

There was almost no breeze in this small back yard, which, unfortunately, didn't help my exhaustion. It only made the burning in the base of my throat stronger and the dry heat radiating from my skin hotter.

It was awful.

"Again!" Austin yelled. I wearily drew my arm back and punched the dummy, hitting it in the gut.

"Again!" I punched it across the face. My muscles ached as I moved, but I knew I wasn't allowed to stop.

"Again!" it's ribs. Everything about me hurt from days of physical torture.

"_Again!_"

"That's_ it!_" I yelled back at him, my calloused and slightly bloodied fists planted firmly at my sides. "I give up! I didn't sign up for this!"

Austin narrowed his eyes at me as I stepped away from the practice dummy, folding my arms across my chest indignantly. "_None_ of us signed up for this, Ally. _None _of us asked for this life. But guess what? We got it anyways. So suck it up!"

"No!" I yelled back at him, stomping my foot against the grassy floor. My left foot was doing better, so I could at least walk normally on it again, but it was still too weak to kick anything, so I was stuck practicing punching drills over and over and _over_ again. "_I_ didn't get this life! I was perfectly happy in _my_ life with my mom and my dad, where no one forced me to learn how to kill a fricken demon with just my index finger and an elastic band!"

"So what, you want me to go back in time to a week ago and _un_save your life?!" Austin challenged. The acidity in his voice was chilling, but I was so angry I barely even noticed it.

"I didn't _ask_ you to do that!" I cried.

"Right, my bad. I was only trying to help someone. Next time you're in trouble, I won't bother." He shot back sarcastically, crossing his arms across his chest. Fire burned in his eyes brightly, dangerously. But… he also looked kind of… hurt? That I wasn't thanking him for saving my life.

"I didn't say that!" I said.

"Yes, you did!" he threw his hands up exasperatedly. "If you don't want to be here, then why don't you just leave? See how long you survive out there on your own, instead of here, where I'm _trying_ to keep you safe!"

"I didn't ask you to protect me! I can take care of myself!" and with that, I wheeled around on a heel and stomped as effectively as I could back into the house, slamming the painted green door closed behind me. I winced guiltily as the photos on the walls shook, threatening to fall from their pegs, but thankfully they held up. Kicking off my combat boots, I stormed into the kitchen and sat at the table resolutely in the chair beside Dez, where he sat, flipping through one of the various books from the large pile beside him.

"Having fun?" he asked lightly, not looking up from the thick parchment paper of the blue-covered book in his slender hands. I glanced at the twisting, silver writing across the cover. It was in an old language I didn't think I knew, but after a moment of watching the words, they began to quiver and change, morphing into English until I could understand the title perfectly. "_A Magician's Guide_".

"You could hear us?" I asked, a little nervous.

"Everyone in Miami could hear you two, sweetie." He looked up at me now, giving me a sympathetic smile, studying me with his water blue eyes.

Dez was handsome, I knew. He was tall, muscular, with carrot red hair that swooshed quite well on his forehead, but… He never looked like someone you might consider dating. He always just looked like you should treat him as your older brother. He had that air about him.

I let out an annoyed breath, leaning forward, balancing my elbows on my knees and planting my chin in my hands. "He was working me too hard." I deadpanned.

"He's just passionate about his work, is all." Dez reasoned, placing a small slip of ripped paper in the book as a bookmark and placing it, closed, on the table.

"So he has to be a complete malignant dictator about it?" I raised an eyebrow. He smiled, exhaling through his nose in a little bit of a laugh.

"No, he doesn't have to, but he can't help it. It's just who he is; he's intense when it comes to hunting. He won't stop until every last person on earth is safe." The way Dez spoke… I knew he'd known Austin for a long time—how long, I didn't know, but I knew it was years—it made it seem like he'd known Austin a lifetime. It made it sound like they were brothers. I suppose, they did think of each other as brothers.

They went out hunting every night, at sundown, and they wouldn't come back until well past midnight—two, three a.m. sometimes. They were slicked with blood every time. Their knives and swords were sometimes nicked in places, and they were always covered in dark blood. They went out every night and killed God knew how many demons, with only each other and Elliot to guard their lives. I guess that made them as close as brothers; they trusted each other with their lives.

"But he was acting like I owed it to him to be good at this." I said.

"I think he just wants to be sure that you'll be able to take care of yourself if he's not there to save you."

"Well I didn't ask him to protect me." I said bitterly, though I did feel a little bit of guilt tug at my gut. I was thankful he'd saved me—really—I just didn't like feeling like I had to rely on him.

"Look, Ally," Dez leaned forward on his elbows, studying me over the table. He suddenly looked so much older than a twenty year old. I mean, his face was smooth, and his lips still curved in a laughing line, but his eyes suddenly looked like they held decades of wisdom. "I've been hunting my entire life. My dad raised me on it—he trained me right here, in the backyard of this house. So I've saved a few lives in my time. And… you never forget the feeling of saving a life. It feels like you owe it to them to keep them alive forever. You just feel like you have to protect them. That's how Austin feels towards you. He just feels like he kept you alive so far, so he owes it to you to make sure you keep on living."

"So his way of keeping me alive is to work me to death in training?" I asked my throat a little tight from Dez's mini-speech.

Dez just shrugged, leaning back in his wooden kitchen chair. "We all have our different ways of doing things."

I sighed. "I suppose I'd better go apologize to him, shouldn't I?"

Dez just nodded, picking his book back up and cracking it open again to the page he had bookmarked with the scrap of paper.

I rolled my shoulders a bit, straightening up a bit in my chair, and stood, walking to the hallway that led to the door out back. Just before I left the room, I paused by the turn in the corner, my hand on the wall. I turned back to Dez slowly. He was already back into the book, reading with a content look on his face. I almost felt bad to break him out of it.

"A few days ago…" I started slowly. Dez looked up from his book, a calm expression on his face. "Austin and Elliot were… they were sort of arguing, but it wasn't out loud. It was more of a tacit argument… over me. What—what was that about?"

Dez thought for a second before answering carefully, concisely. "Like I said, Austin feels like he owes it to you to keep you safe—both from demons, and from guys like Elliot."

/-/-/-/

When I went back outside to the back yard, I'd found that Austin had already gone inside. He must have slipped in and up the stairs beside the door when I had been engrossed in my conversation with Dez. I ended up searching the entire house for him—from the basement and all its armed glory, with demon hunting weapons lined up on shelves along each wall, to the small den that held probably hundreds of books on shelves, from all different genres and authors, stacked over each other and packed into the shelves as tightly as possible. Finally, I wandered up the stairs to the upstairs hallway, where all the four main bedrooms were (I was sleeping in the small guest bedroom downstairs).

I walked slowly down the hall towards the powder blue door to Austin's bedroom and opened the door softly, peering inside. I froze as the sounds entered my ear.

Sweet, mellifluous music.

Austin sat on the carpeted floor, his legs crossed and his back facing the door, looking out the bright window as he methodically plucked at the chords on the acoustic guitar I'd seen on the floor by his bed days ago. I watched in awe as his nimble fingers pressed the chords and played the out tune—one I knew well.

I found myself smiling slightly, leaning against the door frame as he continued to play. I couldn't see his face, but I could just imagine the expression he wore—one of calmness and absence, like he was getting as lost in his own music as I was.

And then he began to sing.

I hadn't pegged him as the musical type the first time we'd met, but standing here, watching him as he played, swaying slightly with the music, I could see it. I could see it so clearly. It was beautiful.

"_When I see your smile, tears run down my face, I can't replace._" He began in a slow, sweet voice. "_And now that I'm strong I have figured out, how this world turns cold and it breaks through my soul._"

A small smile tugged at my lips as the song progressed. I was torn; I wanted to apologize to him for snapping earlier, but… I never wanted this to end. I never wanted to stop hearing his voice fill the room, making it seem brighter and more vibrant. The blue walls seemed bluer, and the books on the shelves seemed to be showing the stories within them already.

Like I said, it was beautiful.

"_I will never let you fall. I'll stand up for you forever. I'll be there for you through it all. Even if saving you sends me to Heaven._" His voice began to rise, building momentum as he sang the chorus. "_It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. And seasons are changing, and waves are crashing, and stars are falling all for us._"

I didn't know if it was the angel in him that made him sound so sweet, but I doubt it. I think it was just him that made him sound quite like this.

All too quickly, I recognized the denouement of the song, the closing lyrics. "_I'll be there for you through it all, even if saving you sends me to Heaven._"

He set the guitar down on the floor beside him and stayed still for a little while longer. I stayed still, as well. I wasn't quite sure what to say. Did I tell him how beautiful he sounded? Or did I apologize for eavesdropping—and, for earlier today?

He stood and turned around before I could decide. He froze, his face blank, as he surveyed me in the doorway, leaning against the door frame, a light blush on my face.

I waited for him to blow up at me or something, but he didn't. He only shook his head and chuckled to himself. "I should have guessed. You're too curious for your own good."

I smiled bitterly, rolling my eyes. I wished I could have said that was the first time someone had told me that. I looked down at the guitar beside his bare feet and nodded to it. "That was beautiful," I said.

"Thanks," he picked up the guitar and walked over to the guitar stand beside one of the book shelves. "I… I don't play a lot anymore."

"Why not?" I blurted out before my mind could stop me. He looked back at me, an unreadable expression on his face. "Sorry," I scrunched up my face a little in apology. He chuckled again.

"It's okay," he said, a ghost of a smile playing across his face, but he still looked at me passively, unreadable. "I… I stopped playing a lot when my dad died. He was the one that pushed me to play when I was younger."

"He wanted you to be a musician?" _Shut up, Ally_.

"No, he _didn't_ want me to be a musician." He corrected me, turning back to the guitar and resting a hand on the neck. "That's what made me want to play more—I wanted to prove him wrong."

My eyes softened as I watched him let his hand fall from the neck of the guitar and turn to me, answering my unspoken question. "He died when I was fourteen. I've been living here with Trish since then."

"I…" I started in a small voice. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be." Austin shook his head, his eyes steeling over with every word. "He died a noble death, protecting the world."

"And your mom?" I asked.

He looked away again. I think he wanted to hide the hurt on his face, but I knew it was there. "Demon hunters die young, usually. I was two."

I laid a hand on his muscular shoulder, but he just shrugged it off and looked back at me over his shoulder. "Look, Ally, I don't blame your for not wanting anything to do with this world. It's Hell, plain and simple; going out every night and not knowing if you're going to come back in the morning. Making countless enemies from other worlds. Having to fight for your life every time you step out your front door. It's terrifying. I'm just trying to help you survive. 'Cause that's all this life is; surviving."

He sat down on his bed, leaning back against the pillow propped up against the wall, and looked at me, his face drawn and tired. I sat down beside him slowly and leaned against the wall. I looked at him with sad eyes, and he looked at me with the same expression.

"I think…" I said slowly in a thick voice. "I think I was just trying to stay in my old world for as long as I could—by not trying hard enough. Like, if I didn't commit to this, it wouldn't be true. I wouldn't be a demon hunter where it counted."

He smiled bleakly. "We can switch places if you want." I chuckled.

"Not a chance." I replied slyly, leaning my head against his shoulder. I could feel him tense a little bit under my temple, but then he relaxed, leaning his head on mine.

We were quiet for a minute, both of us deep in thought. I thought about what he'd said; about how this life was only surviving. Maybe… if my parents really were demon hunters… maybe that's why they hid me away from the Darker World. To keep me away from this life that's only surviving; fighting and surviving.

I smiled at this; it sounded like something my parents would do. They were always protecting me. I wasn't even allowed to walk to the library down the street by myself until I was fourteen. When I was fifteen, I was finally allowed to stay home alone for a night—and even then, mom had made me promise to call her just before I went to bed to say goodnight.

I hadn't even been around when my parents had gotten a divorce; they'd sent me away to stay with my Grandmother for the summer. I'm thankful for that one, though. I don't think I could have gotten through all that when I was only five.

As I thought about all this, the words slipped out of my mouth before I could even they'd crossed my mind. "Thank you for saving me—really."

"It was my pleasure," he replied, and I could hear the slight arrogance return to his voice—right where it should have been. "But, Ally, I can't teach you if you don't commit."

"I know," I nodded, sitting up and pulling away a little bit, looking down at my hands in my lap. The knuckles were already beginning to harden with callouses, and the Hello Kitty Band-Aids Trish had put on yesterday were dirty at the edges from sweat and dirt. My fingernails were cracked and filed down to stubs so I wouldn't cut my palms open as I punched anymore. They were beginning to resemble everyone else's in this house—weathered and worn.

"Ally," he said my name again, and I looked up from my lap. He was sitting in front of me, his hazel eyes studying me earnestly. I looked away from his piercing gaze, but his large hand caught me by the chin and forced me to look at him. "It's okay to be scared of this."

He looked at me with such studying, understanding eyes… I felt like I'd known him forever.

Without thinking, I crawled onto his lap and leaned my head against his chest. I didn't think about the missing awkwardness between us; I didn't think about how we should have been distant from each other, being strangers to each other. It didn't feel like we were strangers. I felt like I'd known him so long—trusted him for so long.

And I knew, as he wrapped his strong arms around me, that he felt the trust, too. He felt like we weren't strangers.

But maybe that's just another one of the after-effects of saving someone's life.

* * *

**The song used in this chapter is _Your Guardian Angel_ by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. **

**So how was my first week of regular updates? I actually finished this on Monday, but I wanted to make it absolutely perfect, so I kept it to myself all week. I was only looking out for you guys. I think I like this system, though. This way I'm forced to edit all week, so there are little to no mistakes! **

**Also, I've gotten this question frequently in the reviews, so I'm just going to say it now: Yes, I have read the Mortal Instruments books by Cassandra Clare, but no, this is not the A&A version of TMI. The only similarities here are that they fight demons.**

**Last note, HUGEHUGEHUGE thank you to GoGurt Nicole/ItsaMeNicole for making the beautiful cover for Angels and Demons! You're the best, GoGurt Nicole! **

**-KR Blake**


	5. Into the Darker World

Chapter five: Into the Darker World

* * *

I tugged the leather belt up a little higher around my waist, wishing I had opted for the lighter knives than the long dagger that hung from my side, weighing down the belt. I couldn't help but glance around nervously at the sea of people passing us by. I knew they couldn't see us—Austin had explained it all to me very thoroughly—but still, it felt weird. I wasn't used to walking around in broad daylight with just a thin veil of magic surrounding me.

I looked to Austin beside me, smiling weakly as we walked down the street. He looked so natural, despite the fact that if I focused on him too hard, he would flicker out of sight for the briefest of moments.

I tried not to think about that.

"Don't worry about it, Ally." He said in a normal voice. I half-expected people to turn and search for the voice that had said that, but no one did. The charm around us masked our voices, as well. "They can't see us."

"What about other…" I trailed off, flicking my eyes nervously around us. "Other Darker Worlders?"

Austin threw his head back in a laugh. "There's nothing to be scared of, Ally." He assured me. "Yes, they can see us, but it's midday; most fair folk, like fairies, can't even come out in daylight. And the ones that can—pixies, kelpies, and such—they won't bother us. Unless, of course, you take their food or step on their wings or something. Then all bets are off."

I nodded. I could tell he was making a joke, but honestly, I welcomed the advice. Stay away from the fair folk.

"Look," he said, touching my arm lightly and pointing to a little crevasse in between two buildings.

"I don't see anything," I said.

"That's because the charms are a little harder to see through when they're put on by the right magicians." He smiled wickedly down at me, an excited light flashing in his hazel-and-gold-flecked eyes. "Just relax your eyes a little behind the crevasse; you'll see it."

I rolled my shoulders back and did as he said, relaxing my eyes until everything was blurry around me. The image of the crevasse between the buildings flickered for a moment—one second it was bricks, and then another it a brilliant splash of colours against the building foundation. It continued to flicker at a dizzying speed until finally it settled on an image; a short woman, about five feet tall, leaning against the red bricks. She wasn't a normal woman, though. She had skin as blue as the ocean and hair that looked like it had been dyed, it was such a bright shade of green. She caught sight of Austin and me watching her and smiled a wicked smile, showing off razor sharp teeth.

"She's a pixie." Austin told me, noticing my confused expression. I wasn't the most familiar with fairytales; mom had always insisted they were stupid and not good for kids. She said they lead kids to believe in miracles, instead of reality. "Wave."

Nervously, I lifted a hand and waved a little. She raised a webbed hand and waved back, her razor smile growing. Then I turned back to Austin, smiling, letting the pixie slip out of my vision.

"Did she make that charm herself?" I asked as we continued to walk on down the street at a casual pace, not really headed anywhere. This wasn't a mission, really; Trish and Dez had just thought it was time for me to start getting used to walking around the city constantly on guard, watching for demons. They had said that you never know when or where you'll be attacked.

"Yeah," Austin nodded. "Pixies—and all the fair folk—are lucky like that. They're the only ones in the Darker World that don't have to hire a magician, or use cloaking stones to slip out of the mortal's sights."

My hand subconsciously went to my jeans pocket and felt the small stone poking out of it. It was a simple enough stone; it looked like something you'd find at the beach, along the cliffs, but all over it, twisting symbols had been burned into it. I couldn't read the symbols, but it felt like I knew them; I knew what they were supposed to mean. They had felt like deception and invisibility when I ran my thumb over them just before putting it in my pocket.

"What about demons? Do they make their own charms?" I asked, letting my hand fall from my pocket and looking around, wary just at my own mention of those hellish creatures (_pardon the pun_).

"No," he shook his blonde head. "Demons prefer it if mortals can see them. They feed off fear, see. If the mortals can see them, they're even more afraid."

I shuddered involuntarily at that, remembering the kind of fear that had thrummed all through me that day in Marino. A little drop of that seemed to drip back into my veins. I glanced over my shoulder; a little paranoid that I was somehow being followed, but I knew there was no way we were being followed without Austin's knowledge.

I loved the sense of security having Austin Moon by my side brought me. It was so calming, allowing me to look at the world around me freely, without having to worry about being attacked. He'd keep me safe.

Summer was in full swing by now—most of the people that passed us by on the streets were teenagers my age. They walked in groups, carrying towels and water toys towards the beach, since that's where most of the teenage summer was spent in Miami.

The sun beat down on me, warming me, but not in a way that I was gasping for breath and clamouring to get to the shade. It was the kind of warmth I was used to after seventeen years of spending my summers at the beach, curled up on a towel, reading a book off to the side of the parties that always seemed to be happening on the beaches. Sometimes I'd be invited to them, if they were being hosted by kids that didn't go to Marino, and therefore didn't know me, and sometimes I'd go. They were fun, usually, but I much preferred the solitude of my towel and books.

A small breeze swept through the street as we turned onto the next street, making my chocolate curls float around my shoulders for a second before falling back down my back gracefully. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Austin looking at me perplexedly, and gave him an odd look. "What?" I asked.

He swallowed, looking away. "Nothing." He said sharply. "Nothing, I'm just… thinking."

I nodded, still a little confused. He was confusing. That's just about everything I'd learned about him in the last couple of weeks: Austin Moon was confusing. Sometimes he was completely calm and serene—almost like he was my friend—but then the next second, he was cold and distant towards me. Everyone else in the house had seemed to accept me by now, but he still seemed like he was trying to decide whether or not to throw me out on the streets.

Elliot was continually nice to me, Dez always had something to say that would make a confusing problem suddenly seem so simple, and Trish had slowly been becoming a kind of sister figure to me. She was the nicest out of them all to me. Sure, Elliot always smiled, but I knew that deep down, there were tints of smugness in that smile if Austin was in the room. He may be genuinely nice to me, but I knew that a part of it would always be to piss Austin off.

And sure, Dez was one of the smartest people I'd ever met, but sometimes I hated how right he was about everything. It was like he had a complete view of the entire world at once. Maybe that's what he was learning while reading all those books on the world of magicians and the basics of magic; how to see the world like a magician.

Trish seemed to be the only one that was always on my side of everything. She understood why I'd sometimes come into the kitchen with red-rimmed eyes, but she never pointed it out. She would always just push a cup of coffee towards me and smile sympathetically. It was the kind of smile that said, "_Tell me when you have the words._"

"Hey, Ally," Austin said suddenly, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, grabbing me by the wrist to catch me before I went on. I blinked, snapped out of my all-consuming thoughts, and looked at him. He had a friendly, somewhat mischievous smile on his face again, the concealment from just minutes ago completely gone now.

Like I said, Austin Moon was confusing.

"You wanna see something?" he said, smiling wider. I got the feeling that it wasn't so much of an option as a preface to whatever he wanted to show me.

"Do I have much of a choice?" I asked pointedly. He shook his blonde head, beaming, looking like an excited child who wanted to show his parent something he'd made.

"C'mon; you're gonna love it!" he dragged me out of the way of the large stream of people on the sidewalk, towards one of the stores.

It was an old, run down bookstore with a dark inside that could barely be seen from the sidewalk. As we walked closer, I noted the splintered, rotting wood of the windowsill, and the peeling paint on the door. Across the dirtied window on the door was the shops name; _Heaven of Books_. The words were faded and chipped away, barely there, and I could only just make them out.

Austin pulled the door open for me, a bell ringing overhead as the door opened. I nodded in thanks and walked into the bookstore with him following close behind.

At first, it looked like any old bookstore that should have gone out of business long ago. The shelves that filled the small store were coated in dust, and it looked like none of them had been touched in centuries. The desk at the front was unattended. The only inkling that someone was here was that the small, handheld lamp was left on beside the logging book on the front desk.

Other than that, Austin and I were completely alone.

"You wanted to show me a bookstore?" I asked incredulously, turning around in a full circle before walking slowly to one of the shelves.

"Not just _any_ bookstore; one of the Council's bookstores." Austin grinned at me, following me to the shelf and pointing to the leather-bound books. "Read the titles."

I examined the cracked spines closely, until I could see the faded words etched into them. _Mauryl the Great_. _Anbrosa the Fierce. Sedai the Dark._ All of the books on the shelves had titles like this; they all seemed to be names or titles of monarchs.

"Who are all these people?" I asked my voice quieted in awe, tracing a light finger over one name. _Sima the Gentle_.

"Great magicians and fighters. People who have served the Council in history, or who have tried to destroy them." Austin said, smiling faintly, picking the book on Sima the Gentle out from beneath my fingertips. "Sima is one of my favourites; she stopped a war between the demon hunters and the fair folk in the six hundreds with just her Silver Tongue—that's the ability to persuade anyone to do anything you want. It would have been a terrible war; who knows how many would have been killed? But she stopped it all before even one person had fallen."

He replaced the book back on the shelf and pulled out another. "Cygnos the Bloodthirsty." He said, examining the ink black cover. "He tried to destroy the Council from the inside out. He was one of the Elders on the council. He manipulated everyone with his black market-bought magic into thinking they were all enemies, and they nearly destroyed themselves. That was the closest anyone has ever come to destroying the Council of Elders."

"The Council?" I asked curiously, bringing out one of the books from the shelf and reading the title curiously. _Aruthuri the Brave_.

"They're the… government of the Darker World; I guess you'd call them." Austin said, replacing the book back in its place. "They're made up of the ten oldest and wisest demon hunters in the world. They interfere when someone gets too close to destroying the world, or exposing us to the mortals. I think the last time they were needed was in the beginning of World War Two, when some stupid teen magician thought he had the power to stop a German attack on Poland. He nearly killed himself trying before the Council interfered."

"But wouldn't it have been better if the Council had, I don't know, helped him stop the Germans?" I pushed. I knew the attack he was talking about; the first attack on the Polish by the Germans, when they took the country. "They could have changed the course of the entire war, and not as many people would have died!"

Austin just shook his head. "It doesn't work like that, Ally. We protect the humans from other worldly forces; we can't protect them from themselves. It's against the law to interfere in human history—to try to change it."

"But—" I began to argue, when someone behind us cut us off.

"We cannot change the laws, Ms. Dawson. We can only abide by them, no matter their unfairness." A withered old voice said. I whirled around, startled by the voice's sudden appearance. Behind us, sitting on the high barstool behind the front desk, was a small, ancient-looking woman, hunched over, facing us. Her paper-white skin was withered, and her equally as white hair was pulled up into a high bun, a few wisps escaping, falling around her scrunched up face. Her eyes were bright, though, unlike any elderly person's I'd ever seen. They were an electric blue that pierced through to me, shocking me with their brightness and sharpness.

The only odd thing about her, besides her obvious vigour and grace at her age, was her ears; they were pointed up, tipped like an elf's.

"How do you know my name?" I asked, replacing the book on Arthurai the Brave on the shelf.

The woman smiled mischievously. "I am a great seer, Ms. Dawson. Not much can be hidden from me." I nodded shakily. If she could see my name, then how much else could she see? The thought made me shy away a little bit.

"There's no need to scare her, Cissa." Austin laughed, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder.

Cissa scowled good-naturedly. "You've a stupid attachment to this one, Mr. Moon. She'll break your heart soon enough."

My breath caught in my throat, and I began to sputter out: "Wh—wha—what? N—no—I—"

"Ignore her," Austin cut me off before my voice got any shriller. "Cissa's a magician, just like any other. They take pleasure in playing with people like this. They say one thing and mean something else entirely."

"You would, too, if you had an eternity to live." Cissa said in a light voice, smiling. She didn't even deny playing with people.

Were all magicians as evil and conniving as this? I guessed they were, if they were all immortal like Cissa.

"Theatrics and history lessons aside," Austin said coolly, "could you open the door for us?"

"Door?" I asked.

"You didn't think I brought you here just to tell you about dead magicians, did I?" Austin looked down at me, almost in a laughing way, before placing a hand on the small of my back and guiding me to follow Cissa as she slid off her barstool and began to walk through the rows of books. As we walked, I heard her mutter something under her breath.

"Stupid child doesn't know a thing."

/-/-/-/

Cissa lead us to a small office in the back of the bookstore, almost completely concealed by stacks and shelves of books. As it was, I had to sidestep through a narrow gap in the shelves just to get into the office.

I scrunched up my nose in distaste as the air in the office hit me. It was stale, stagnant, different from the air just beyond the office door. Out there, the air had smelled like moth balls and old books, but here, it just smelled gross.

There was nothing in this small office besides a single bookshelf, centered against the back wall, its mahogany shelves shining against the dirty mustard colour of the walls. It looked so out of place. Even the books on the shelves looked out of place. They were easily the oldest books in the store; they were cracked and falling apart at the spines, pages frayed and falling out at random. The writing on the spines was almost too faded for me to make out. The language they were written in was completely different than the language the books on the shop floor were written in. Those books had been written in the same twisting alphabet that the books back at the house were written in. But the books here… they seemed to be written in a much darker, older language that I couldn't decipher. No matter how long I stared at the faded letters, they refused to rearrange themselves into understandable words.

Cissa pushed past Austin and me, moving at an alarming speed for someone who was most likely born in the early years of the world. Reaching up to the top shelf a foot above her head, she pulled down a book and pressed the tips of her withered fingers against the back of the wood. I heard something click faintly, but it could have been my imagination for all I knew. It was such a slight of sound; it could have been a page flipping or something.

I knew, however, it wasn't my imagination, when the entire back of the shelf depressing in on itself, and the entire shelf began to quiver.

Cissa took a step back and admired her handiwork as the quivering of the shelf increased, bringing forth a low rumbling noise. I took an automatic, cautious step back, trying to shield myself behind Austin's strong, solid build, but he stepped out from in front of me, pushing me forward to watch.

The shelf shifted slightly, screeching against the hardwood flooring, sending stabs of pain into my eardrums. I flinched, but kept watching, entranced by the way the shelf was moving.

It slid across the floor as if some invisible man was pushing it. Curious…

Beyond the bookshelf, where I expected to see the same dirty mustard wall, a little discoloured by age, was a dark doorframe. Or, it may have been something else. I couldn't quite see it properly. It was just a door-shaped pit of blackness that seemed to lead to nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Like the rabbit hole that brought Alice to Wonderland.

As the bookshelf continued to move, the dark hole continued to open, wider and wider still, until; finally, the shelf came to a stop. The hole was now wide enough for two people to fit into easily. I still couldn't see into it—the darkness seemed to eat away any light that even came close to it.

"Thank you," Austin said to Cissa, placing a hand on the small of my back and pushing me forward towards the hole, despite my obvious reluctance.

"Any time, Mr. Moon." Cissa smiled, stepping back and admiring her handiwork with the dark hole. "Just mind whose tail you step on whole you're down there. I don't want a whole parade of bloodthirsty monsters running after you through my store. It's bad for business."

Austin chuckled, shaking his head at the old magician. "When have I ever stepped out of line down there?"

Cissa just gave him a pointed look without saying anything. Then she turned on a heel and walked out of the office, leaving us alone with the gaping scar of a hole in the wall. I couldn't help but stare at it like a monster was about to burst out of the darkness.

"C'mon." Austin said, noticing my wary glances and reaching into his pocket to bring out his Android phone. He tapped in the passcode and shone the faint light into the darkness, taking a step into the doorway. He extended a hand towards me, smiling encouragingly, and I took it slowly. I could just see my fingers shaking a bit out of nervousness.

Cautiously, I took a step into the darkness. I found that my foot hit stone flooring. I could feel the coldness even through my Sketchers. It was chilling, unearthly.

Beside me, Austin took another step forward, down a bit. I followed him, finding that we seemed to be at the top of a dark staircase—to where, I couldn't tell.

We could have been walking down to Hell for all I knew.

"Where does this go?" I asked in a whisper, finding as we descended down the stairs slowly, with nothing for light except Austin's phone, that the silence was more and more pressing. It stifled me, making me almost scared to raise my voice above a whisper. Like if I spoke too loudly, I'd wake something that should stay asleep.

"You'll see when we get there." Was all Austin would say. As we walked down, I tried to press him for more details, but he wouldn't say. He just left it at that.

I couldn't tell how far we were going down. At some point, the light from the doorway faded away from behind us—or maybe we turned a corner somewhere. I couldn't tell. It was harder to perceive distance and time when you could see or hear nothing. The only thing that kept me assured that I wasn't completely, utterly alone in this dark cesspool of… _scariness_ was Austin beside me, his hand still on the small of my back, and the light from his Android bobbing up and down in front of us as he walked. It was calming, reassuring to have him here with me, but I still felt like I'd suffocate if I stayed in this staircase too long.

Finally, Austin stopped walking, his arm tightening a bit around me, signalling me to stop with him. Clicking off his phone, I deftly heard him stuff it back into his pocket and grope the air in front of us. His fingers bumped into something solid in front of us—close.

"Bingo," he breathed beside me. My heart sped up a fraction. I felt so blind down here. I couldn't tell one shadow from the next—I couldn't even tell where Austin was beside me, now that he'd let go of me. There was just nothing, and it was jarringly scary.

"Now close your eyes." He said, suddenly right beside my ear. I could feel his hot breath tickling my earlobe for a moment, and a light blush spread across my face. That was one positive to the darkness; Austin couldn't see how nervous I was to have him at such a close proximity. Not that there was anything to be nervous about, though. It was just general nervousness over the fact that he was… so _close_. I wasn't used to having guys rest their arms around my waist, or let their legs brush against mine as easily as he did.

"Why—"

"Just do it." He pressed sharply. "Trust me." I shivered at the sensation of his breath on my ear again. I was almost positive he felt my shudders this time.

_Dammit_.

"O—okay." I said slowly, closing my eyes. Not that there was much of a difference as to when they were open, though.

I heard a door open in front of us, and Austin propelled me forward, through the doorway. For a second, as we passed through at the same time, he pressed himself tightly against me, and I swear the blood vessels in my cheeks had flooded, there was so much heat in them.

As we walked through the door, a dull commotion hit my ears, like something I'd heard all my life—like a busy city street.

"Open up." Austin said a smile apparent in his voice. There was something else there. Pride? No, it was more… awe.

I opened my eyes slowly, my jaw effectively dropping to the floor as I gazed around.

Right before me was a bustling street, full of fantastical creatures I could have only imagined in my wildest of dreams. It looked like something out of a fantasy novel. The buildings on either side of the cobblestone street were lined with inscrutable systems of vines, though there was no sunlight here. It looked like we were in a monstrous cavern, but when I looked up, all I could see was darkness—there was no ceiling I could see.

The yellowy light came from street lamps in front of the buildings, bathing everything in a dull light.

The people—would they be considered people here? Or something else?—were all kinds of creatures that Austin, Trish, Dez, and Elliot had taught me about over the past days at the house. Pixies, with their vibrantly coloured skin; fairies, moving swiftly and silently in their exclusive groups, not looking at anyone as they passed; elves, tall and elegant in their silk robes; and demon hunters, alert, glancing around cautiously.

_We always have to be ready,_ I remembered Dez had taught me once. _We never know when someone might try to kill us, or someone around us._

"Wh…" my voice died in my throat, the words coming out in inaudible puff of air. I couldn't even articulate my wonder at the sight in front of me: an entire city, teaming with life, all underneath Miami.

"This, Ally, is Highwick City." Austin told me, smiling wryly at the city rising up to the stalactites that were just visible through the darkness covering the ceiling. "The heart of the Darker World."

/-/-/-/

It was a beautiful city, I found, despite the fact that it seemed to be buried under God knew how much dirt and rocks, thrumming with life in its unevenly stoned streets. There were statues in every square of famous figures of history like Sima the Gentle, carved out of precious metals glittering in the artificial light.

More than once, Austin had to pull me out of the street and into an alleyway to keep me from being run over by a carriage or a magician in a hurry, barreling down the street with reckless disorder.

Despite the little sprinkles of dirt that floated down from the ceiling and the dank, stillness in the air here, there was still something to admire here. The simplicity of Highwick City; the way every person here seemed to know exactly what they had to do, and how they had to go about doing it. The entire city moved in sync with itself. There was not one flaw or imperfection in the way things were in Highwick City. It was beautiful like that.

Austin lead me up and down the streets, pointing out things he liked about the city, like the statue of Elizabeth the Stubborn, a famous demon hunter from the seventeenth century, and a small bakery tucked in between two large, dilapidated warehouses, where you could get "the best sweet rolls in any world".

He spoke almost animatedly about this city, as if it were a part of him in some way. I suppose, if it was the heart of the Darker World, then it was part of his heart, too.

"This city—and all the cities like it that exists all around the world," Austin explained to me as we strolled down one street and turned onto another. "They all used to be up, above ground, where the mortals are. That was thousands of years ago, though; back when technology wasn't so prominent in human culture. Back then, there was no science to challenge our existence. They were fine to live side by side with magical and heavenly creatures."

"And what happened to that?" I asked, though I felt like I already knew the answer.

"Technology came." Austin answered, sounding mournful. "It changed the way humans thought; made them more… single-minded, I guess. It made them think that the Darker World was impossible and blasphemous."

"So that's why this city is underground?" it wasn't really a question, more a restatement. I couldn't help but feel a little guilty for that. Humans had driven this beautiful city underground just because they couldn't learn to accept the Darker World for what it is.

"This, and every other Darker World city." His hazel gaze flicked up to the stalactites, and down to the dirt cracking through the stones in the streets, his expression sad.

"But it's so beautiful. How could anyone be afraid of this?" I asked, but as soon as the words left my mouth, I knew my answer. It was _because_ it was beautiful, unflawed, that people were afraid of it. It was like a Siren to them; beautiful from afar, murderous up close.

The conversation dropped off after that into a comfortable silence, in which Austin absently guided me through the streets of the city while I gazed around, slack jawed and wide eyed. It was hard to soak it all in, from the low bridges arching over low, dark underground streams, to the high roofs of apartment buildings, seeming to almost scrape the blackness at the top of the cavern. I got the feeling that even if I spent a lifetime exploring these streets, I'd still find a new twist or corner to excavate after that time. Everything was a wild, twisting maze that begged me to figure it out for myself, instead of letting Austin lead me safely.

A quarter of an hour later, Austin finally stopped in front of a low, worn down building with wood nailed over the broken windows in front. I could hear the low drone of chatter float out from underneath the uneven door and onto the streets. It sounded like crude chatter to me; the kind that mom wouldn't want me hearing. The sign that hung low over the front window named the building, _Han's Tavern_.

"What's up?" I asked, looking up at Austin, who was staring at the tavern intently, silently debating something I didn't know.

"I just want to go in here for a second and ask the barman something." He answered absently, moving around me and walking towards the building. I followed obediently, ducking into the door behind him as it swung heavily shut.

The tavern wasn't what I expected it to be, but then again, nothing in this city was. Where I'd thought there was going to be a reasonably high ceiling, there was instead a low one, splitting the building into two halves. The top floor, though, wasn't complete, but hung over top like a loft, part missing so as to get up there. The bottom floor was dark, and a thick cloud of cigar smoke floated around at head level, making me cough and gag at the smell.

There were people everywhere, settled into booths and at tables, drinking and gambling, and probably making several illegal transactions I would have preferred not to know.

Austin walked directly towards the bar, not bothering to see if I followed or not. He walked like he was on a mission; like he wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible.

The man on the other side of the bar looked up as we approached, and smiled a toothy grin of recognition as Austin met his eye.

"Austin Moon," the greasy, dirtied man drawled, leaning forward on the bar, shining a glass with a rag. "I ain't seen you in here since you was a kid. You could barely hold your sword, you could."

"It's been a few years, Han." Austin chuckled warmly, leaning on the bar just as the barman had. "I'm quite capable of holding my weapons by now."

"I don't doubt it." Han shook his head. "That father of yours was always pushin' ya harder than a kid should'a been pushed."

Austin looked away then, back at me. He surveyed me for a second before turning back to Han. "Speaking of my father," he leaned farther over the wooden counter, "do you know, I wonder, if Iron Place is still shut down? Or if it's been reopened and given to someone else?"

"Iron Place?" Han repeated, almost taken aback by this. "What are you playing at, boy? Trying to impress your girl?" he jutted his chin out to me. I felt a blush come on once again, and ducked my head away from this.

Austin kept his head, though, staying calm and collected. "No, I need to… to pick something up that I left there."

"You'd pick up your death if you go back there, if you ask me." Han grumbled.

"Unfortunately, no one did." Austin said smoothly. How did he keep this calm when this mad kept avoiding the question? "So is it closed, still?"

Han deliberated this for a second before nodding. "It's still closed. The Council wouldn't want to reopen that madhouse after your father's tampering with it."

Austin visibly flinched beside me. "You could have just said yes." He growled, pushing away from the counter and spinning on a heel and stalking past me, out of the tavern. A few people watched him go, just as I did, until the door banged shut after him, snapping me out of my confused stupor and prompting me to run after him.

He was a mystery, Austin was. Just when I'd thought I knew one thing about him, another secret had shown through, making him seem even more inscrutable than before.

/-/-/-/

Out on the street, I had to run to catch up with him, already half way down the block. He was walking so quickly, so murderously, I was almost afraid to catch him by the shoulder and make him slow down.

He snapped back to me, a fiery look in his hazel eyes—one I hadn't seen yet. He had a lot of looks, but this was one I hadn't seen before. He looked like a… hunter. A predator.

"What was that all about?" I demanded, gesturing back to the tavern behind me. He flicked his gaze towards the building briefly.

"Nothing," he replied in a growl.

"It didn't _look_ like nothing." I challenged him, placing my hands on my hips expectantly.

"Then I guess you need to get your eyes checked." He snapped. "Now come on. I want to get home before we miss dinner."

He turned back around to continue walking, but I scooted around him, planting myself in the middle of his path, arms crossed over my chest and eyebrow raised. "Not until you tell me what that was about."

He looked down at me, his eyes narrowing along his nose. For a second, it looked like he almost wanted to snap my neck to get me out of his way. I fidgeted, nervous, uncomfortable under his piercing glare, but kept my ground defiantly. Finally, he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"It's nothing, really." He said in a weary voice. "Han likes to play things up to more than they are."

"Right." I nodded slowly, sarcastically. I still didn't believe it was nothing. He wouldn't be acting this way if it _was_ nothing.

"Look, Ally, now is neither the time nor the place to delve into my childhood, okay?" he placed his large hands on my shoulders, looking down at me, earnest for a change. I'd worn him down. "I'll… you'll see when we get there—to Iron Place. Okay? Just trust me on this."

He directed me to beside him and continued walking, again, not waiting to see if I'd follow or not. I didn't really have anywhere to go besides following him.

As we walked down the street, I couldn't help but hope that I wasn't being stupid by trusting him. After all, no one kept secrets unless they had something to hide.

/-/-/-/

Austin led me to an even sketchier part of the city than Han's Tavern. As we had neared this street, I'd noticed the obvious thinning of the crowds. Less and less people wandered down here along with us, and by the time we'd reached this street, we were the only ones.

This street was different from the others. Where the other streets Austin had led me down here bustling with life, this one was dead. Not just in its population, but in its air. It was dank and quiet here. I couldn't hear anything beyond when we turned the corner.

The buildings here were made of rusted metal, and were all eroding away on the sides of the cracked, broken street. They looked like empty metal skeletons, looming over us as we walked past, threatening to swallow us whole if we got too close. I stepped closer to Austin, eyeing them warily.

He led me down the rows of what could have been a building cemetery towards a large warehouse at the end of the line, stopping in front of it. He looked down at me.

Why did he study me like this so much? Did he expect me to break down into tears at any minute? Was he just waiting for the moment when he'd have to pick up the pieces of me?

"What?" I asked irritably.

He swept an arm elegantly towards the warehouse. "This," he said in a dramatic voice, "is Iron Place." He studied me for a little while longer, waiting for my reaction.

"What, you want us to go in _there?_" I scoffed.

"Yes, that's generally the way people go to get things." He replied simply, letting his arm drop to his side, turning towards the wrought iron gates in front of the warehouse. I rolled my eyes.

"Right." I nodded. "Let's just go into the creepy, worn down warehouse! Because that's _not_ where all the brutal murders happen in the movies!" I feigned enthusiasm, sarcasm dripping into my voice.

"Actually," he said factually, stepping forward and gripping the iron gates tightly. "I believe some of those murders happen in abandoned cabins in the woods. So there's a fifty percent chance we should be good. Now come on."

He braced a foot on one of the rungs in the elaborately designed gate, and began to climb up slowly, carefully avoiding any rusted pieces of metal jutting out at "_artistic_" angles. I hesitated for a moment, staring at the iron before curling my hands around the bars. They were cold to the touch—almost stinging. I pushed that down and pulled myself up a bit, following Austin's path above me, trying to ignore the paranoia welling up in my stomach. What if I fell? What if I stabbed myself with one of the iron pieces sticking out? What if… what if there really were murderers waiting for us on the other side of these gates, preparing to kill us as soon as we touched down on the dirt floor on the other side.

My hands curled around the top rung of the gate, and I pulled myself up the last stretch, my arms beginning to ache in exertion. Austin was already waiting at the top of the gate, resting easily on the iron rungs, not even phased in the least.

Show off.

As I hauled myself up beside him, resting on the same rung as him, he looked at me, amused. "You make the funniest face when you're exercising, you know that?"

"You might have mentioned it once before." I muttered evilly, swinging my leg over to the other side of the gate and bracing myself.

"I give credit to funny faces where credit to funny faces is due." He swung his leg over the side after me and let himself fall down, landing on the dark dirt in a crouch. He stood and waited for me to follow.

Taking a deep breath, I twisted around on the rung, fitting my foot into a small loop in the iron designs. I climbed down a fraction, suddenly so aware of the distance between me and the ground. The gate was at least fifteen feet high, easy.

_Just breathe, Ally._ I told myself as my heart rate accelerated dramatically. I took another step down, one foot at first, followed slowly by the second. _Just—_

I let out a shrill shriek as my foot slipped from its hold, and yanked my body downward with it. I felt the iron ripping at the skin in my palms as my hands were ripped from around them stingingly, and I fell backwards—

—right into Austin's waiting arms.

I gasped audibly as I landed on him; my eyes squeezed shut tightly out of fear. I felt his knees begin to buckle beneath the sudden weight I posed on him, but he stayed upright, strong and solid beneath my shaking figure. My arms immediately went around his neck, keeping me close to him.

"Ally." He said soothingly, shaking me a little to get me to open my eyes. "It's alright, I promise. I got you."

I took another deep breath, this time for the air that had been sucked out of my lungs as I fell, and opened my eyes slowly. My heart still beat loudly in my ears, threatening to burst right out of my chest, but I did notice the slight calm having Austin so close brought me.

He smiled encouragingly, and I returned it with my own shaking smile, relaxing my grip around his neck a bit. I didn't let go, though. I couldn't pinpoint why.

"T—thanks." I stammered in a low voice.

I watched as his face grew into an expression I didn't know.

Austin Moon had a million different expressions, and this one was not one I'd seen before. It was new, mysterious, and inviting. I felt my face melt to mirror this new expression. I'd never felt it on my face before, but it felt nice to wear. I liked it.

"It was my pleasure." He murmured, smiling ghostly.

I was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he still held me in his arms. He hadn't let me go. Curious…

"I…" I started. "I thought I was going to break my neck there."

"I'd never let that happen." He told me. It sounded like a promise to me. I hoped it was. I liked the thought of Austin protecting me like that, right then. It sent a thrill through me.

I was so close that I could almost count the individual amber flecks in his eyes, or the light sun kisses splashed across the bridge of his nose.

That thought sent another thrill through me. Sun _kisses_.

I felt my eyes gravitate towards his lips. They were so pink and… perfectly shaped…

He dropped me from his arms suddenly, any past kindness in his face quickly turning to a stony scowl. I landed lightly on my feet, wobbling slightly with the sudden weight on my legs. He turned on a heel and made a purposeful procession towards Iron Place.

I stood still, frozen in my Sketchers for a moment, staring after him. What had that been? The way he had looked at me, and cradled me in his arms so carefully, he'd almost looked like…

No.

I shook my head, closing my eyes for a second. I could still feel his arms around me, I thought. It still felt he was holding me. I shook that off with a shrug, and followed after him, towards the building.

As it loomed over us, I could hear a little voice in the back of my mind screaming, _Get away from here! Don't you know better than that? Don't you want to survive?_

It felt so treasonous to walk up towards the towering skeleton of a building, but I couldn't think why. I couldn't think why I had the almost overwhelming urge to turn and run away the closer we got to the front door.

"Hurry up." Austin snapped ahead of me, veering to the left and walking along the front of the building. He seemed to be searching for something. What, I didn't know. He'd stop occasionally and look into one of the dirtied windows for a few seconds before walking on. And I followed diligently, determined not to get lost somehow in this darkened courtyard outside the monstrous house, despite my every last nerve screaming at me to leave.

Finally, Austin stopped abruptly in front of one of the windows, surveying it for a minute. Then he snatched a large rock from the ground near the metal siding and weighted it in his hands.

"Stand back," he said coldly over his shoulder, not meeting my eye.

I took a step back, watching confused. He drew his arm back and threw the rock at the window. The glass shattered in a shower of shining shards and loud crashes. I heard the rock land with a thud on the other side of the window.

Then Austin shed his jacket and placed it carefully over the bottom sill, protecting against the shards of glass still poking out. He braced his hands on the covered sill, in between the glass jutting out, and hoisted himself up on one foot, through the wide gap, and into the warehouse.

I hesitated before following him, taking my time with through the hole, making absolutely sure I wouldn't get caught on the razor sharp glass. I let myself fall through and land on the cold metal floor on my hands and knees. Small shards of glass cut into my skin, stinging as I brushed them away. I saw small smears of blood on my palms in the small bit of dim light that shone through the windows, made translucent by the dirtiness of the glass we had not broken. I swore under my breath, wiping the blood away on my jeans. And these were my good jeans, too.

Austin was already moving around the room, rifling through the many shelves on the walls, throwing books out of their places, onto the floor, with complete disregard.

"Austin?" I asked in a hushed tone. The solid darkness of the room seemed to vacuum my voice right out of my throat, out of my grasp. "What are we doing here?"

"I need to get something." He answered shortly, opening what sounded like a desk drawer and shuffling through stacks of paper. I didn't know how he could see through this darkness; I could barely see a foot in front of me. "Something important."

"Can I help?" I asked, taking a step forward. I cringed at the sound of glass crunching underneath my sneaker. For something, I had this sense in the pit of my stomach that something was lurking in the shadows, just waiting to pounce out and grab us.

It was maddening.

"No." Austin snapped. "Just try not to break anything."

I opened my mouth to point out his rudeness, but then remembered that dangerous look he'd gotten back in the street outside Han's Tavern. It was like he _wanted_ to keep me shut out from his mind. Was I really that untrustworthy? The others had all seemed like they understood him well enough—even Elliot. They all seemed to know him.

But with me, it was like he just didn't like me enough to let me in. I wasn't good enough for that.

So instead of helping, like any other good friend would do, I was sentenced to _not break anything_. I wasn't stupid. I didn't need to be told to not break anything.

I wandered over to one of the shelves just visible in the small pockets of light in the room. On it, I could see a few framed photographs, disoriented by years of dust accumulated on its glass cover. I wiped the dust away.

The photo was of a little boy riding his father's shoulders, a wide smile on his young face. His father looked just as happy, smiling up at his son. Wiping more of the dust away, I looked closely at the boy. He had blonde hair and pale features, just like his father did. They could have been brothers if not for the wide age gap in between them; the father had wrinkles on his forehead, and hints of gray along his hairline. He almost looked like…

I looked back at Austin, who was now sifting through disorderly piles of books piled in the corner of the room fervently, then back at the photo.

Was it… was the little boy in the photo… _him?_

I took the photo off the shelf and pulled the paper out from in between the ornate metal frames. There was something written on the back of the photo in faded black pen. _**Austin and I up Above in Domino Park—June, 2003**_.

Ten years ago, this photo had been taken. The man in the photo had been Austin's dad, and the little boy had been Austin, once upon a time. He looked so much happier than I'd ever seen him—he looked carefree, ebullient. I smiled to myself.

He was adorable as a child.

I looked around the room again, a new light shed over it. Austin had lived here, in this large, cavernous warehouse. If there was light, I wondered, what would this room look like? It obviously had belonged to his father, since the photo had said, "Austin and _I_". Was it his study? His bedroom?

Austin suddenly made a loud, frustrated noise, and threw a book against the wall opposite him, near my head. "_Ugh!_" he yelled. "It's not here!"

I turned to him, eyes wide. "What's not here?" I asked, my voice small, taken away yet again.

"_It!_" he snapped, throwing his hands up in frustration, as if that explained everything. Was _everything_ I did annoying to him right now?

"What's '_it_'?" I pushed, taking a step forward.

"It's just—" he started in a frustrated voice, cutting himself off, turning back around to the desk and running a hand through his hair. "It's nothing. Something he left behind." He muttered.

"Your dad?" I asked. He looked at me over his shoulder. The anger in his eyes dissipated as he saw the photo in my hand.

"Yeah." He struggled out. "It's something dad left behind. A—a book." He leaned forward on the desk. "I thought it might help you."

That struck me speechless. It was for me—at least, in part. It was obvious he wanted it for himself, too. He wanted something of his father's.

"What does it look like?" I kept my voice sweet and small.

"It's big and leather, I think." He scratched his head. "I haven't seen it in years. I found it once in here—dad's study. He took it away from me when he found me with it, though. I don't think I was supposed to see it. But I remember it was old; the oldest he had."

"And off-limits." I breathed, thoughts whirring through my brain quickly. "Meaning he'd keep it hidden." I moved deftly towards the wall, reaching out. Maybe it was just my stupid imagination running wild—it did that from time to time—but this building seemed like a castle, of sorts. Like, instead of being Iron Place, it was Iron Palace.

My fingers searched the walls as I trailed from one side to the other.

"What are you doing?" Austin asked, his eyes following me, confused.

"I'm trying to help." I explained without really explaining. Sound familiar, Austin?

I turned the corner in the room, and instantly, my fingers bumped against something covered by shadows. A wooden painting frame. I smiled to myself.

Gripping the wide painting, I lifted it up and off its nail slowly, grunting under the weight.

"Ally, what are you—" Austin rushed forward.

"Just trust me, okay?" I interjected, setting the painting down on the floor. I slid my hands over the wall until I found it: a small indent, almost undetectable, unless you knew what to look for. I pressed down on the indent.

A small door, only about as big as a microwave, swung out towards me, creaking loudly, and I flinched. I hated the sound of metal against metal. "Yes!" I exclaimed excitedly. I'd been right.

"How did you…?" Austin asked, stepping forward to look in the small deposit in the wall. I just shrugged.

"I read a lot of adventure books when I was a kid."

He shook his head. "You're amazing, you know that?" Again, I shrugged, but it was more bashful this time.

"I try."

I leaned back against the wall as Austin took my place in front of the deposit, looking through it. I wondered what was in there, but it seemed rude to shove him aside and look for myself. I settled for looking out the window, watching the lights across the street. Were they light bulbs? Or some kind of magician's magic? They seemed brighter than the light bulbs in the mortal cities.

God, I sounded like such a hunter when I said that. What was becoming of me?

Near the window, I thought I saw something—a flicker of shadows. Curious, I walked towards the window, gazing out; trying to catch whatever had flickered before.

And then the windows exploded in as three huge, dark monsters pounced.

* * *

**I swear this chapter was only going to be 6000 words at most in my mind. It didn't work out like that, obviously. It's just shy of 9000... So congratulations for actually reading it all! Go you! Leave a review to tell me how I did? Or tell me to never ever do this to you and/or myself ever again? Please? **

**Oh, an thank you for all the reviews already! 100! Just on the first four chapters! You're all so amazing! *hugs you through the Internet* **

**Until next Friday! Have a great week, guys! Stay smiling! Life's better when you smile, isn't it? :) **

**-KR Blake **


	6. Cracking a Spell

Chapter six: Cracking a Spell

* * *

**I want to thank someone really special who's been helping me through the entirety of Angels and Demons, as the perfect proof-reader-slash-person-who-stops-me-from-gettin g-distracted she is: Emily. Thank you so much, Em! I love you! **

* * *

Austin's hand closed around my wrist and yanked me back against the wall as glass showered the both of us, cutting into our faces and hands. The stinging that followed was almost enough to bring me to my knees, but I knew I couldn't. Sinking to my knees would be like admitting defeat, and I couldn't do that.

The three creatures crowded us in the room, forcing us back into the corner, near the painting, snapping and snarling. My stomach fell out from beneath me as they walked through the little bit of light let in by the newly broken windows.

They were demons. Long, lizard-like demons with six stubby legs each and a spiked tail that I knew held incarcerating venom that made them ten times more dangerous to both Austin and I.

Mercenary Demons.

I shrank back into the shadows as far as I could go, and Austin followed, pressing his back against my front and drawing a knife from his belt. I could just feel a wetness beginning to seep through the back of his shirt. I hoped it was sweat.

I knew it was blood.

"When I say," Austin breathed, low enough for only me to hear, "hit the floor, stay down until it's gone, then run like Hell."

"What—" I started to ask, but he shushed me before I could.

"Just _do it!_" he hissed, his hand sneaking towards his jeans pocket. The weight he had pressed against me lightened a fraction, and his stance shifted.

The demons snarled, apparently unfazed by this change. Or maybe they didn't notice.

"Who sent you?" he asked in a brave voice, pointing his knife to the closest demon to him.

"_Master did not say Master's name._" one of the demons hissed. The voice sent a chill to my spine. "_Master only said to kill one and bring the other._"

"_Kill one._" Another echoed.

"_And bring another._" Droned a third.

Austin laughed. "I'll be damned if you stupid things think you're getting either one of us today."

The monsters snarled, sinking back on their hind legs simultaneously. Apparently, stupid and devoid of free will as they were, Mercenary Demons still understood insults.

"_Kill one._" The demons continued. "_And bring another._"

"You mentioned that before." Austin said in a casual tone. What was he doing? _Trying_ to get us killed? "What's the matter? Don't have enough intelligence to say something other than what you're told to say? And here I was, thinking demons were too great and proud to be parrots. How silly of me."

"Austin!" I hissed, but he didn't take any notice of me.

"_Kill._" The demons growled, their bright eyes trained deathly on Austin. "_Kill._"

"That's nice," he just sounded _bored_ now. "But how about trying some Shakespeare? Everyone loves a good Shakespearean sonnet."

"_Kill!_" they chorused, louder than before. "_KILL!_"

And with that, they pounced.

Everything after that happened in a blur. Austin swiped down with his knife. The blade embedded itself deep in the neck of one of the monsters. The force drove the beast down to the ground with a painful yelp. Then he rolled to the side, underneath another beast flying at where his head had been just a few seconds ago. He drove his knife up as the monster passed him, burying the blade up to the hilt in its fleshy underside. I felt my stomach clench. I didn't need night vision to know that the floor was slicked with blood.

A third demon pounced on Austin, still lying on the ground. The demon thrashes and flailed, tearing at his shirt and chest, snarling maliciously. Austin wrestled his hands underneath the beast and threw it off him with a grunt. The demon hit the wall, making paintings and photographs hung up shake and fall to the ground. He swore loudly.

The demon stood, shaking its head, and slunk back towards Austin, the others making a ring around him.

"_Kill…_" they hissed in unison.

"Ally," Austin said in a cautious tone as the monsters crawled closer. I shifted out of my hiding spot in the shadows, catching his eye. He slid his gaze down to his jeans pocket, and I followed. Slowly, he slid something small and round out and held it high above his head.

"_NOW!_"

I dove to the ground, covering my face with my hands, just in time to hear the crack.

And then there was a blinding flash of light, so bright it hurt, even though my eyes were squeezed shut. A cold wind rushed past me, ripping at my clothes and burning my face. I bit my tongue to stop from crying out, but a tiny squeak still escaped.

_Count to ten,_ I told myself, still curled up on the ground. _One, two, three…_

I could hear things all around the room; the demons snarling in pain, and Austin moaning somewhere to my left. It sounded like he had been thrown against the wall with the force of the explosion.

_Four, five, six…_

Crackling. And light. Light that glowed bright orange. But I didn't dare open my eyes.

_Seven, eight, nine…_

Smoke reached my nose. I gagged.

_Ten._

I peeled my eyes open, and inhaled sharply, immediately regretting it. Smoke stung my eyes and filled my lung, burning, making me cough and gag.

I could finally see the room around me, illuminated by the flames eating away at the furniture. It was a study, dusty and lost by years of neglect. The floor in front of me was covered in smears of blood, and six dead demons lay, mangled and charred by the flash of light that had caused the fire. What was it? Austin had thrown the stone he used to keep invisible onto the ground. Had it cracked? Was it the spell breaking free that had caused this destruction?

Austin lay crumpled in a heap of himself against the wall, eyes closed. A steady drip of blood fell down the side of his slack face.

I pulled myself up off the ground, legs shaking, and rushed over to him, pulling him up. I tapped his cheek a few times, trying to get him to open his eyes.

"Austin?" he groaned. "Austin, open your eyes." He groaned again, his eyes opening to lazy slits.

"Go." He said, throwing a slack hand towards the windows. The glass was now completely gone from them, blown out by the explosion.

"No," I shook my head, grabbing him by the shirtfront and forcing him to sit up straight. Then I dragged him up along the wall and slung his arm around my shoulder.

"Ally, go." He moaned in my ear, his head lolling to the side.

"I _said_ no." I persisted, dragging him over to the window with his jacket over the sill. The jacket was now charred by the flames licking up all around the room. I could feel the heat growing as the flames were fed by all the wood furniture in the room. Some part of me was screaming to leave as quickly as I could before the fire got me, but I couldn't just leave Austin and save myself. He saved my life once. I had to return the favour.

I pushed the burned jacket out of the window and hauled him up as far as I could, which, sadly, wasn't incredibly far. Then I leaned him out of the window and pushed. He landed sloppily on the dirt outside. It wasn't the nicest way, as I'd hoped, but it would have to do.

I was just climbing out of the window after him when I remembered something, and plunged back into the room.

The smoke was almost overwhelming by now, blistering my skin as I walked, a little deftly, towards the deposit in the wall. Covering my mouth and nose with the sleeve of my jacket, I coughed and sputtered, stumbling a bit over my feet. I couldn't stop, though. We'd come here for something. I couldn't leave it.

I grabbed everything I could from the deposit and turned.

My jaw dropped.

The flames had climbed to cover the window; my only escape.

I was trapped.

A million thoughts rushed through my brain at once, all centered around one general idea; saving myself. I'd saved Austin, but it was about to come at the price of my own life.

I ripped off my jacket, now beginning to stain with sweat, and wrapped it around the stack of heavy books in my arms. Then I ran for the door.

I barreled into it, striking it with my shoulder. Pain flared through my arm as I bounced off. I cried out. It was locked. I threw myself against it once again, praying that I was doing something. Once more, and I could feel the old, rusted hinges of the door beginning to give way.

Taking a deep, sputtering breath, coughing out the smoke burning my lungs, I stepped back and kicked out at the door. I screamed as my foot came into contact with the door, pain twisting at my leg.

But it worked.

The door fell out from its hinges, giving me an exit. I took off blindly down the hall, taking gulp of whatever non-smoke-filled air was here before it clouded with fire. I could hear the fire behind me, crackling and beginning to eat away quickly at the new space, but I didn't turn to watch it. I kept on stumbling, knocking into the walls, coughing up what felt like my entire respiratory system.

I didn't even have time to stop and be scared for my life—what energy I wasn't focusing on staying awake, though exhaustion and fumes were threatening to pull me under, was focused on finding a way out of this labyrinth.

I stumbled down halls, one after the other, without any idea of where I was going. I tried opening the doors as I passed them in the halls, but they were all locked, and I didn't have it in me to kick in another door. As it was, my foot throbbed every time I stepped on it.

I kept pushing, though.

I couldn't stop until I was safe, or I was dead.

I was hoping it was the former.

I was expecting it to be the latter.

Behind me, I heard the roar of fire as it reared up, dangerously close. My back felt like it was blistering with the heat. How did it burn so hot—hotter than any fire I'd felt before? And how did it burn in this metal building? Was it the magic?

I turned from one hallway into the next, sliding over myself, trying to gain traction on the slippery metal floors. The blood on the soles of my shoes didn't help the matter at all. The flames continued to follow me, licking even closer with the speed I'd lost turning in the hallway. I swear they grazed my back as I ran—or rather, hobbled. My foot throbbed so badly now, I could no longer run. My lungs burned intensely.

My fear, above all else, was crippling. It made me want to curl up in a ball and wait for the flames to take me—to give up. I was so scared.

I turned the next corner, and there it was. A reprieve. A tiny, little glimmer of hope in this dark building being eaten away by ungodly flames.

There, at the end of the hall, was a small, dirtied window. Underneath it stood a table and vase, holding flowers that had withered and died long ago.

Readjusting the books in my arms, I pushed myself harder, clamouring, using the walls as leverage, desperately trying to get to that window. I was desperate now. So, so desperate. My lungs felt like they'd been washed with ash and left to dry in a volcano, and my throat burned. I could barely breathe.

I was a good twenty feet away from the end of the hall, and I began to run as quickly as I could. The pain was almost unbearable, threatening to make me fall and lose myself at any moment. I was ragged, weary, and scared. All I wanted was to go home. Not to the house, with Austin, Dez, Trish, and Elliot, but to _my_ home. Where my mom was, and my books were, and my childhood memories. I wanted to go back where I was safe.

Using this desperate want as a drive, I kicked into the air and pushed off the small table, crashing into the vase and sending it falling to the ground, only to be eaten by the fire a moment later.

Then I crashed right through the window.

And oh God, it hurt.

/-/-/-/

I stared up at the ceiling, dimly illuminated by the rising flames coming from the building. I couldn't help but smile to myself. Not even an hour in this city, and I'd already burned down a warehouse, carrying a whole load of relics from Austin's childhood. Way to go, Ally. Way to go.

I closed my eyes, and tried to collect my muddled thoughts. At least I'd saved the books from the deposit. Just to make sure, I curled the arm that held the books wrapped in my jacket towards my side. As I moved the arm, I cried out in pain. I became acutely aware of the blood running down the arm and staining the ground beneath me in a large red pool. I must have cut in jumping through the window.

Admittedly, it wasn't my best plan, but it was a desperate fight for survival. It was my only choice.

I don't know how long I laid there; it felt like hours to me, but I couldn't tell. The sun didn't set and rise down here. It was only dark, dank, all the time. I wondered if anyone would ever find me here. I couldn't hear anyone. I could tell this wasn't the most frequented part of Highwick City, but someone was bound to notice the magical flames at one point or another, and come to contain it. But I heard no one. For the longest time, I heard no one.

Until, finally, a pair of soft footsteps came running towards me. I tried to move my head to the side to see who it was, but moving sent sharp stabs of pain up and down my spine. So I just lay, limp and tangled in a heap of myself on the dirt, hoping someone would come and rescue me.

The footsteps came closer, slowing and speeding up at intervals, until they were right by my head. Someone knelt down beside me and lifted my head up. I tried to open my eyes, but that felt like too much effort. I was tired. I just wanted to sleep forever.

I wanted to sleep and never wake up.

"Ally?" a soft voice said nearby. At least, I think it was nearby. It could have been far away, for all I knew. My mind was playing tricks on me. "Ally, sweetie, don't fall asleep." I mumbled something incoherent under my breath, and kept my eyes closed. A hand tapped my cheek, trying to get me to wake up. "Please, sweetie, don't fall asleep. Stay with me."

"Ionwanna." I mumbled. I felt hands slip under my back and legs, and begin to lift me up into a standing position. Pain throbbed throughout my whole body, and I moaned audibly.

"I'm sorry, baby." The soft voice cooed. Who was it? I felt like I knew this person—knew them well—but who were they? I couldn't put my finger on it. "Come on," an arm slid around my waist and a hand gingerly took me by the wrist and guided my arm around a narrow shoulder. "Let's get you home and fixed up."

My head lolled to the side, and a soft scent wafted into my nose. It smelled like freshly baked goods, right out of the oven. I smiled and unconsciously buried my nose into the shoulder. The scent reminded me of home, of happier times. Times when I wasn't running for my life. Times when I didn't have to think about killing or being killed or anything of the sort. I missed those times. They were the good times.

This, right now, it felt like my own personal form of Hell.

I cracked my eyes open to slits, and tried to focus on the face atop the shoulder I was resting on. Brown hair, soft, barely wrinkled skin, and thin lips, defined by age. It almost looked like…

"Mommy?"

* * *

**Good? Bad? Alright? Am I doing the right things with this story? What do you guys think? Tell me in a review! Please? :) **

**Until next Friday, **

**-KR Blake**


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